Here is an essay from Paul Merkley: Hugo Chavez’s Vision, reprinted by permission of Paul and from The Bayview Review. See the links at the end for direct access to the rest of Paul’s work.

The Presidency of Hugo Chavez had a shaky beginning, to say the least, and came close to crashing down several times along the way. His career as an army officer went off the rails in 1992 when he was imprisoned for two years following his attempt to remove by coup President Carlos Andrés Pérez. After that, it took several years of aggressive politicking for him to build a new political movement and win his first election as President of Venezuela in 1999. Re-elected in 2000 and again in 2006 he survived a coup against himself in 2002, a referendum in 2004, and public relations backlash from two failed marriages and unending rumours of infidelity. He was well  into his third term when doctors discovered the cancer for which they could offer no cure but only the palliating benefits of radiation therapy in Cuba. In spite of this clear scientific verdict, on  July 9, 2012, Chávez declared himself fully recovered from cancer and turned to the people to give him an eternal mandate, winning a fourth term in October 2012. It was only after he secured that mandate that the public was given something resembling the truth about his health. The National Assembly bent the constitution so that he could postpone his inauguration  (due to occur in January, 2013) and so it was left to his Vice President, Nicolas Maduro,  to continue as Acting President, pending elections which, following the present constitution, will take place on April 14.