Founder of the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200 (MBR-200) in the early 1980s, Hugo Chavez went on to be elected president of Venezuela in late 1998, serving until his death in 2013.
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How did Hugo Chavez rise to power?
Chávez led the MBR-200 in an unsuccessful coup against the Democratic Action Government of then President Carlos Andrés Pérez in 1992, for which he was imprisoned. After serving two years, he founded the Fifth Republic Movement political party and was eventually elected president of Venezuela on Dec. 6 1998, receiving 56.2% of the vote.
What is Chavismo?
Hugo Chávez considered himself the leader of the so-called “Bolivarian Revolution,” with a socialist economic program for much of Latin America, named after Simón Bolívar, the South American independence hero. Beyond the programs of helping the country’s poor, Chávez’s leadership was based on nationalism and a strong military. His ideology became widely known as simply Chavismo.
Updated Dec. 6, 2023 at 2:00 p.m.