For 14 years, Hugo Chávez’s anti-capitalist tirades gave voice to the downtrodden, made him a Robin Hood figure for the poor and gave the dispossessed a sense of identity. Fittingly for a former tank commander, his body looked like packed concrete. That made him seem indestructible, although it was two years of cancer that eventually did for his ambition of near-perpetual Venezuelan rule.
Chávez’s death, aged 58, now leaves a vacuum in his country and the broader region. But will his presence be missed for long? Perhaps only by Russian arms-sellers and Chinese state banks that have mortgaged future Venezuelan oil production with $40bn of loans. Everywhere else, Chávez’s policies did everything but work.
At home, Venezuela faces an uncertain transition, with three points of potential tension. Maintaining unity in the faction-ridden regime is the first challenge of Nicolás Maduro, the vice-president and Chávez’s chosen successor. The second tension pits the regime against the opposition in presidential elections due within 30 days. This, however, is a struggle over the commandante’s enemies that every chavista will enjoy. Polls suggest an easy win, buoyed by the sympathy vote.