Editorial Board
Chavez’s Legacy of Ruin
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The of President Hugo Chavez marks the beginning of a perilous and hopeful moment for Venezuela and the Western Hemisphere.
There is no denying the impact of the charismatic ex-paratrooper, a plotter and survivor of coups who demolished Venezuela’s political power structure, won three elections with wide support and used the wealth from the world’s largest oil reserves to advance, across the Andes and beyond, his home-brewed ideology of “Bolivarian socialism.”