CARACAS, (Reuters) – President Hugo Chavez died Tuesday after a two-year battle with cancer, ending 14 years of tumultuous and divisive rule that won him passionate support among the poor but hatred from business leaders and wealthy Venezuelans.
The flamboyant 58-year-old had undergone four operations in Cuba for a cancer that was first detected in his pelvic region in mid-2011. He vanished from public view after Dec. 11 surgery that resulted in complications and respiratory infections.
REUTERS/Miraflores Palace/Handout/Files
“It’s a moment of deep pain,” said Vice President Nicolas Maduro, his voice choking during a live TV address.
“His project, his flags will be raised with honor and dignity. Commander, thank you, thank you so much, on behalf of these people whom you protected.”
Venezuela’s military chiefs quickly pledged loyalty to Maduro, who will be caretaker president until elections are called within 30 days.
Chavez supporters poured onto the streets, weeping and chanting “Chavez lives!” and “We are Chavez!”.
“Don’t let anyone try to convince you Chavez has gone … He will always be with us,” said the head of Congress, Diosdado Cabello.
State TV broadcast Chavez’s emotional last speech to the nation in December, shops in Caracas closed their doors for fear of looting, and condolences poured in from around the world, including messages from film maker Oliver Stone and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
Chavez easily won a new six-year term at an election in October and his death is devastating for millions of supporters who adored his charismatic style, anti-U.S. rhetoric and oil-financed policies that brought subsidized food and free health clinics to long-neglected slums.
Detractors, however, saw his one-man style, gleeful nationalizations and often harsh treatment of opponents as traits of an egotistical dictator whose misplaced statist economics wasted a historic bonanza of oil revenues.
Chavez’s corpse will lie in state at a Caracas military academy until a formal funeral ceremony on Friday, and seven days of mourning will be observed, officials said.
MADURO FAVORITE TO WIN ELECTION
Chavez’s death opens the way for a new election that will test whether his socialist “revolution” can live on without his dominant personality at the helm.
A new vote will likely pit Maduro against Henrique Capriles, the centrist opposition leader and state governor who lost to Chavez in October. Maduro appealed for calm and respect for democracy.
One recent opinion poll gave Maduro a strong lead because he is Chavez’s preferred successor, enjoys support among many if the working class and could benefit from an inevitable surge of emotion in the coming days.
Maduro has been a close ally of Chavez for years and would be very unlikely to make significant changes to the late president’s socialist policies, although he could at some point try to ease tensions with investors and the U.S. government.
Just hours before Chavez’s death, though, Maduro alleged that “imperialist” conspirators had infected the president with cancer among a plethora of conspiracies with domestic opponents.
The government never detailed the type of cancer Chavez had, but experts think it was a soft-tissue sarcoma.
A victory by Capriles would bring in much deeper changes and would be welcomed by business groups and foreign investors, although he would probably move cautiously in order to lower the risk of political instability and violence.
Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves and some of the most heavily traded bonds, so investors will be highly sensitive to any signs of turmoil.
U.S. President Barack Obama said his government was interested in starting a new relationship with Venezuela.
“At this challenging time of President Hugo Chavez’s passing, the United States reaffirms its support for the Venezuelan people and its interest in developing a constructive relationship with the Venezuelan government,” Obama said in a statement.
An opposition win at the election would move Venezuela closer to the United States and upend alliances with Latin American states that have relied on Chavez’s oil-funded largesse – most notably with communist-led Cuba, which recovered from financial ruin in the 1990s thanks largely to Venezuelan aid.
Chavez was a garrulous figurehead for a global “anti-imperialist” alliance stretching as far as Belarus and Iran, and will be sorely missed by anti-U.S. agitators.
After the cancer was diagnosed in June 2011, Chavez went through several cycles of disappearing from the public eye for weeks at a time for treatment in Havana, only to return just as his adversaries were predicting his demise.
His health weakened severely just after his re-election on Oct. 7, possibly due to his decision to campaign for a third term instead of stepping aside to focus on his recovery.
Apparently realizing the end was nigh, Chavez named Maduro his successor in December, just before his fourth operation, which followed months of grueling chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
MADURO’S PROSPECTS
On Feb. 18, Chavez made a surprise pre-dawn return from Cuba and was taken to a ninth-floor suite of a military hospital in Caracas, surrounded by tight security.
The government published a handful of pictures of Chavez lying in a hospital bed while he was still in Havana – the only time he was seen since the latest surgery. Supporters held tearful vigils around the country to pray for his recovery.
Maduro, 50, will now focus on marshalling support from Chavez’s diverse coalition, which includes leftist ideologues, businessmen, and radical armed groups called “colectivos”.
Seeking to knock down rumors of tensions at the top of the ruling Socialist Party (PSUV), Maduro has stressed the unity between him and Cabello, a powerful former army buddy of Chavez who heads the National Assembly.
Maduro is a former bus driver who rose from union activist to foreign minister and then to president-in-waiting. He won Chavez’s confidence by meticulously echoing his vitriolic rhetoric and never airing a dissenting opinion.
Maduro has mimicked Chavez’s rabble-rousing style in appearances in recent weeks, peppering speeches with insults aimed at adversaries.
Capriles, Maduro’s likely opponent, is a 40-year-old governor of Miranda state who led a hard-fought campaign against Chavez in the October election.
There are clear ideological differences between the 20 or so groups in the opposition’s Democratic Unity coalition and without their enmity to Chavez to bind them, the alliance could splinter.
Until recently, polls had shown Capriles would beat any of Chavez’s proteges. But the naming of Maduro as Chavez’s heir, and the outpouring of emotion that will accompany Chavez’s death, have changed the picture.
A survey carried out by local pollster Hinterlaces between Jan. 30 and Feb. 9 gave Maduro 50-percent support, compared to 36 percent for Capriles.
