What kind of policies has Hugo Chavez implemented in Venezuela since becoming president of the country?
Chavez has been in power for six years, but it took three years before he burst onto the Latin American political scene. Since then he has emerged as the leader of progressive forces in Latin America. He is almost like a successor to Fidel Castro, who is immensely popular in Latin America. The new political movements in Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia are looking to Venezuela with enthusiasm. There is a revolution going on in Venezuela, a revolution of an unusual kind it is a slow motion revolution. Chavez is a democratic president, working with democratic institutions. The 1998 election, when the old political system collapsed, was an electoral moment, not a coup. Chavez drafted a radical new constitution in 1999. This reinforced the fact that Venezuelas oil company was state owned. In the 1990s the government had discussed privatising it. He also brought in land reform of a slightly unspecified sort. In Venezuela most of the peasants had left for the cities. It is the most urbanised countr
