◼ HUGO CHAVEZ DIES AT 58 - AP
◼ Hugo Chavez 1954-2013 - Daniel in Venezuela
As we all anticipated yesterday the denouement was at hand. It came at 4:25 according to the cadena right now. The cadena earlier today must have been a preemptive strike, to start pushing the burden of guilt away from the regime.◼ Hugo Chavez, Socialist Monster and Anti-Democratic Thug, Now Burns In Hell With Satan - Ace Of Spades
May he find the peace that he missed in all his life.
And thus we enter the year of all dangers.
◼ It's official: Nicolás Maduro wants to be Chávez 2.0 - ForeignPolicy.com (image source)
◼ Meet The New Leader Of Venezuela - Business Insider
"It's impossible to expect Maduro to be another Chávez,'' Miguel Tinker Salas, a professor of Latin American history at Pomona College and the author of The Enduring Legacy: Oil, Culture and Society in Venezuela told Wilson. "Instead he represents continuity with the policies and programs that the president has promoted. This is still very much an evolving process with much still unclear.".
Another bigger question is whether Maduro will actually be able to claim the presidency. Diosdado Cabello, speaker in Venezuela's congress and a hardline Chavez ally, may himself make a run for the presidency or attempt to become the interim president, forcing Chavez's party into conflict with itself.
And either way, Venezuela's constitution calls for an election in 30 days
◼ Things are about to get crazy in Venezuela. - Adam Taylor/Business Insider
◼ Hugo Chavez… - neoneocon
Chavez can register to votein the U.S. now.
— Kerry Picket (@KerryPicket) March 5, 2013
◼ Hugo Chavez is dead; Update: Democratic rep mourns; Update: So does Jimmy Carter - HotAir
So, what’s next for Venezuela now that their corrupt, destructive, America-hating, socialist leader is no more? Either Vice President Nicolas Maduro or National Assembly leader Diosdado Cabello will become interim president for thirty days while the country engineers a special election — and without Chavez to figurehead his “Chavismo” movement, the outcome isn’t necessarily a sure thing.◼ Condolences flow from the left upon news of Hugo Chavez death - Anne Sorock/Le-gal In-sur-rec-tion
Update (AP): Michael Moynihan’s acidic obit at Newsweek is the one you’ll want to read. As he reminds us, there was no monster Chavez wasn’t willing to hug in the name of anti-American camaraderie. He was a proud supporter of Saddam, Mugabe, Qaddafi, and of course Bashar Assad, not because they overlapped much philosophically beyond authoritarianism but because they were all antagonists of the United States. That was Chavez’s core shtick — anti-colonialist vaudeville at the expense of the west’s superpower.
