Chavez’s legacy


Bertrand Russell once wrote about the American revolutionary Thomas Paine, "He had faults, like other men; but it was for his virtues that he was hated and successfully calumniated." 


Chávez survived a military coup backed by Washington and oil strikes that crippled the economy but once he got control of the oil industry, his government reduced poverty by half and extreme poverty by 70 percent. Millions of people also got access to health care for the first time, and access to education also increased sharply, with college enrollment doubling and free tuition for many. Eligibility for public pensions tripled.  He kept his campaign promise to share the country's oil wealth with Venezuela's majority, and that will be part of his legacy.

So, too will be the second independence of Latin America, and especially South America, which is now more independent of the United States than Europe is. Of course this would not have happened without Chávez' close friends and allies: Lula in Brazil, the Kirchners in Argentina, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Rafael Correa in Ecuador, and others. But Chávez was the first of the democratically-elected left presidents in the past 15 years, and he played a very important role; look to what these colleagues will say of him and you will find it to be much more important than most of the other obituaries, anti-obituaries, and commentaries. These left governments have also made considerable advances in reducing poverty, increasing employment, and raising overall living standards - and their parties, too have been continually re-elected.


Continuity in Venezuela is most likely following Chávez' death, since his political party has more than 7 million members and demonstrated its ability to win elections without him campaigning in the December local elections, where they picked up five state governorships to win 20 of 23 states.  Relations with the United States are unlikely to improve; the State Department and President Obama himself made a number of hostile statements during Chávez's last months of illness, indicating that no matter what the next government (presumably under Nicolas Maduro) does, there is not much interest on Washington's part in improving relations.

See article on original website, Al Jazeera English, March 5.


Photo: Venezuelans poured into the streets of Caracas to mourn the death of President Hugo Chavez, March 6. (BarrioTV/via Facebook)

Post your comment

Comments are moderated. See guidelines here.


  • Good obit, but why not say he was building socialism. After all, 50% of U.S. residents believe that capitalism isn't the answer. Why not use Venezuela as an example of what is possible even for us?

    Posted by David Bell, 03/08/2013 10:01am (3 years ago)
