The death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez left a large void in the leftist leadership of Latin America and raised questions about whether the oil largesse he generously spread through the region would continue.
He used his oil money to build good relations with everyone
Allies such as Bolivian President Evo Morales vowed to carry on Chavez’s dream of ‘Bolivarian’ unity in the southern hemisphere, but in Cuba, heavily dependent on Venezuelan aid and oil, people fought back tears when they heard he had lost his battle with cancer.
His influence was felt throughout the region from small Caribbean islands to impoverished Nicaragua in Central America, and larger, emerging energy economies such as Ecuador and Bolivia and even South America’s heavyweights Brazil and Argentina, where he found favour with left-leaning governments. Without his ideological presence, Venezuela’s influence is likely to wane and the pure financial weight of the Brazilian juggernaut could fill the gap in the region’s diplomatic realignment.
Chavez, 58, leaves a mixed legacy of economic problems and political polarisation at home, but for many Latin American and Caribbean countries he provided a financial lifeline and gave voice to regional aspirations of overcoming more than a century of US influence.
“He used his oil money to build good relations with everyone,” said Javier Corrales, a US political scientist and Venezuela expert at Amherst College.
Venezuela’s oil wealth also made it a major importer of goods from the region.
Between 2008 and the first quarter of 2012, Venezuela provided $2.4 billion (€1.8 billion) in financial assistance to Nicaragua, according to Nicaragua’s Central Bank – a huge sum for an economy worth only $7.3 billion (€5.6 billion) in 2011. Venezuela provides oil on highly preferential terms to 17 countries under his Petrocaribe initiative, and it joined in projects to produce and refine oil in nations such as Ecuador and Bolivia.
Chavez also helped bail Argentina out of economic crisis by buying billions of dollars of bonds as the country struggled to recover from a massive debt default.
“When the crisis of 2001 put at risk 150 years of political construction, he was one of the few who gave us a hand,” Anibal Fernandez, a former Cabinet chief in Argentina’s Government, said on Twitter.
Cuba gets two-thirds of its oil from Venezuela in exchange for the services of 44,000 Cuban professionals, most of them medical personnel. That combined with generous investment from Venezuela helped Cuba emerge from the dark days that followed the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, the island’s previous top ally, and has kept its debt-ridden economy afloat.
Chavez was close personally and politically to former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, with whom he plotted the promotion of leftist governments and Latin American solidarity against their shared ideological foe, the US.
Along with Petrocaribe, Chavez pushed for the creation of the leftist bloc Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (Alba) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac), both aimed at regional integration and reducing US influence in the hemisphere.
“It’s hard for me to believe that someone like (Ecuadorean President) Rafael Correa or (Cuban leader) Raul Castro can pick up the mantle that is being left by Chavez’s absence (and) sustain the same level of support and vibrancy that these anti-American, Bolivarian relationships and organisations have had,” said Frank Mora, former deputy assistant secretary of defence for Western Hemisphere Affairs in the first Obama administration.
But, with his passing, the question now is what happens to both the oil riches he shared and the leadership he provided. Among other things, he played an important role in getting Colombia and the Marxist Farc rebels to hold their current peace talks.
Vice President Nicolas Maduro, his preferred successor, is favoured in current polls to be elected as the next President in an upcoming election and is expected to continue his foreign aid programmes. But should his likely opponent, the more conservative Henrique Capriles, take the presidency, the largesse could end.
Capriles lost to Chavez in a national election in October, but made clear his opposition to his policies of giving away Venezuelan oil.