With President Hugo Chavez's death Latin America has arguably lost the most influential political leader of the last two decades and has lost one of those men that in Bertolt Brecht's prose are the 'indispensible ones'.
Caudillo is a uniquely Latin American political term that goes back to the XIX century, and during his almost 14 years in power President Chavez became its modern embodiment. With a mix of colorful rhetoric, authoritarianism and a penchant for class confrontational narrative, Chavez resurrected the image of the old caudillo, a charismatic leader able to create a symbiotic relationship between el pueblo (the people) and the government.
And unquestionably the people were at his heart. Chavez has been the champion of the socially and economically marginalised since he came to power in 1999 under the banner of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela. And he put money where his mouth was. The level of poverty, a definer of this oil rich nation, decreased thanks to a decade of social investment. According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean the investment reached US$400.000 million.
The black and mulatto, the majority of the 29 million Venezuelans, worshipped him. To them Chavez was a paternal figure while for the 'blonde ones' — as he referred to the minority white elite — he was a merciless class enemy.
The connection with the people was heightened by his brilliant use of non-commercial media. His Sunday radio talk show Aló Presidente (Hello Mr President) had thousands of followers among the poor. He was media savvy. He challenged the right-wing commercial media system — accused of being behind the failed and shambolic coup of 2002 — and established TeleSur, a pan-Latin American television network that was, as he once uttered, 'a voice from Latin America and not from Atlanta'.
With a few exceptions, most western media demonised him. He was portrayed as a dictator and his government was regularly branded as a 'regime' — forgetting that he was democratically elected in vigorous political contests that outshone many in western nations. His anti-imperialist narrative made him the bête noire of Washington.
Chavez transformed the political landscape of Venezuela in a dramatic way. He broke the hegemony of Venezuela's traditional political parties — the Christian Democrat COPEI and the Social Democrat Democratic Action. Muddied up to their necks in cronyism and corruption, these two parties from 1958 to 1999 took