Hugo chavez biography 2012 election
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Profile: Hugo Chavez
Known for brash statements aimed at other world leaders and rousing televised speeches, Chavez, 58, faced one of his toughest challenges against his opposition rival Henrique Capriles.
Yet Chavez was returned to the presidency in October 2012, capturing 54 per cent of the popular vote to win a fourth term in office.
Born in 1954, the second son of two school teachers in the village of Sabaneta, the young Chavez was interested in becoming a baseball star, not a politician.
Humble origins
He joined the military at 17, apparently in order to be moved to Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, where he could be viewed by talent scouts.
Lacking major league skills, he ended up staying with the military and was deployed to fight a rag-tag rebel army. After hearing suspected rebels being tortured – allegedly beaten with baseball bats covered in wet cloths and speaking with his brother, a Marxist professor, Chavez apparently had an epiphany.
Hugo Chavez and his co • Mérida, 7th October 2012 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Hugo Chavez has won the Venezuelan presidential election with 54.42% of the vote against 44.97% for opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski. Chavez has made his victory speech, while Capriles has recognised his defeat. The “first bulletin” results were announced by the president of the National Electoral Council (CNE), Tibisay Lucena, at around 10pm Venezuelan time, with 90% of the votes totaled, enough to give Chavez an irreversible victory. The CNE president said, “Once again we’ve had a calm electoral process, without problems, with the joy of this people who decided to vote massively today”. A spontaneous street party immediately kicked off in the centre of the Andean city of Merida, and a massive crowd of Chavez supporters began celebrating in front of the presidential palace, Miraflores, in Caracas. “Venezuela will never return to neoliberalism and will continue in the transition to socialism of the 21st c • President of Venezuela from 1999 to 2013 For other people named Hugo Chávez, see Hugo Chávez (disambiguation). Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías[b] (; Spanish:[ˈuɣorafaˈelˈtʃaβesˈfɾi.as]ⓘ; 28 July 1954 – 5 March 2013) was a Venezuelan politician, revolutionary, and military officer who served as the 52nd president of Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013, except for a brief period of forty-seven hours in 2002. Chávez was also leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when it merged with several other parties to form the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), which he led until 2012. Born into a middle-class family in Sabaneta, Barinas, Chávez became a career military officer. After becoming dissatisfied with the Venezuelan political system based on the Puntofijo Pact,[1] he founded the clandestine Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200 (MBR-200) in the early 1980s. Chávez led |