Hugo Chavez Essay Example

Fifth Republic Movement, with his experience in that field he tried in 1992 a coup d'etat1, trying to take out Carlos Andres Perez, the former Venezuelan president, but he failed.

Chavez was arrested and put in prison. While he was in prison, there was another coup d'etat lead by few units of the Venezuelan Air Force but it failed. One year later, Rafael Caldera, before being president, used the turmoil to comment on the degradation of the government and increase of poverty in the country.

Because of that, intellectuals associated with Caldera, helped to impeach Perez. Chavez was pardoned two years after his imprisonment. Few moments after his release, Chavez got the national spotlight, giving him support for the elections of 1998. He reconstituted the Fifth Republic Movement (MVR, V of the Roman numeral five).

While creating his campaign, he heavily based his ideology in the Bolivarianism founded by Simon Bolivar.

In elections, Chavez won by 55% of the popular vote against the candidate of right-wing, Enrique Salas Romer that got 40% of the total popular votes. Ideologies Chavez has based his ideology in to people, Fidel Castro and Simon Bolivar. Bolivar was credited with leading the fight for independence of many Spanish colonies; those colonies where Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, and Bolivia. As stated before, he founded the Bolivarianism that its main purpose is to unify Latin-America.

Castro, one of the followers of the Bolivarianism, he combined it with communism and it is what is now the government of Cuba.

(DO NOT FORGET to leave feedback because it encourages the author to post more essays. ) As his apprentice, Chavez has learned many

things from Castro and he has applied it to the Venezuelan constitution of 1999. Some of the main points of that constitution are: Venezuelan economic and political sovereignty (anti-imperialism), grassroots political participation of the population via popular votes and referenda (participatory democracy), economic self-sufficiency (in food, consumer durables, etc...

, instilling in people a national ethic of patriotic service, equitable distribution of Venezuela's vast oil revenues, and eliminating corruption. Puntofijismo and the Boliviaranism When he was elected by first time in office, he promised to change the politics and "laying the foundations of a new republic" (Wikipedia, 2007). One of his ideas was to get rid of the 'juridico-political embodiment of puntofijismo. ' Puntofijismo comes from the Spanish Punto fijo, meaning fixed point.

Venezuela was always ruled by dictators over 120 years, but a civilian-military alliance overthrew the then dictator Perez Jimenez.

The promise of a democracy was there but it suddenly disappeared when the two mainstream political parties Accion Democratica and COPEI decided to share power exclusively between themselves under an agreement known as the Pact of Punto Fijo (La sombra de Bolivar, 2007). The main purpose of the puntofijismo was to exclude the Left from politics. This created imbalance and the corruption started to rise to very high levels of government. The wealth was only distributed among rich people and politicians. Twenty-three million people were living I poverty and the oil-boom was in the rise.

People started to think that the best way to rule the country was the use of Boliviaranism, that was based on real democracy, civil rights and patriotism. It became very popular in popular culture that even some music

groups wrote about it. That’s when Chavez tried the coup d'etat and gained a lot of popularity. Problems with Americans Money is power and it can be noticed clearly with Venezuela that is the fourth-largest foreign supplier of oil to U. S and the world's fifth largest oil producer.

Venezuela supplies 14 percent of USA oil needs.

Chavez is hated and loved by many Americans. In 2006 the Venezuelan petroleum company CITGO used its campaign of helping the needing by giving them a discount on gas heating. In the other side, Chavez’s haters wanted the Citgo sign in Boston to be removed because of the commentaries about Bush and its symbol resembles the company association with Chavez. During winter of 2006, CITGO introduced a campaign to help poor American people in New York and Boston by giving them 40 percent below market prices of heating oil.

To do that, 12 million gallons were supplied.