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Miraflores Palace via Reuters
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez blows a kiss from the door of an airplane before departing to Cuba at Simon Bolivar airport in Caracas on Dec. 10. Chavez flew to Cuba for cancer surgery, vowing to return quickly, but has not been seen in public since.
MIAMI -- It’s been 40 days since anyone has publicly seen or heard from Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez.
Keith Rosenn, a law professor at the University of Miami with extensive experience in Latin American legal affairs, asks what is on so many minds: Did Chavez die at some point after flying to Cuba on Dec. 10?
“It’s possible Chavez could be dead for a substantial period of time before we know he’s dead and why he died,” Rosenn said. “He’s in Cuba after all.”
Chavez, in Havana suffering from an unspecified type of cancer, has been treated repeatedly by doctors on the communist island.
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The life of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez from his rise as a lieutenant colonel after his failed coup attempt in 1992.
The Venezuelan leader not only shares a special relationship with brothers Fidel and Raul Castro, but his socialist revolution is modeled in many ways after the Cuban system. Fidel ruled the country from the end of the Cuban revolution until he ceded power to Raul in 2006.
It’s highly unusual for Chavez to be gone from public view this long “for someone who craves attention,” Rosenn said.
Now 58, Chavez has seldom been out of the public eye since he assumed power in early 1999.
A former lieutenant colonel in the Venezuelan military, he grew up poor, only to wind up nationalizing and controlling his country’s vast treasure: oil.
Since assuming power, it’s estimated his country has pumped more than $1 trillion of oil onto the open market, while at the same time sharing his nation’s riches with like-minded leaders in Bolivia, Nicaragua, Peru and Cuba.
If Chavez is dead, his brand of socialism, so-called “Chavismo,” could live on “if the Chavistas who remain, remain united and are committed to his missions,” said Susan Kaufman Purcell, director of the Center for Hemispheric Policy at the University of Miami.
But the mood could shift, she said. Chavez’s power base lies among the poor, the very people who “were lied to” in the past about Chavez’s health, Purcell added.
“People were not prepared for this because Chavez suggested he was cured of cancer when he wasn’t,” she said.
Chavez handily won re-election in October 2012 but was a no-show at his Jan. 10 inauguration.
Despite his openly anti-American rhetoric, American officials will maintain a hands-off policy on Venezuela, predicted Aimee Arias, chair of political science at Florida Atlantic University.
“The U.S. and Venezuela have had a tense relationship, but the business relationship with oil has continued pretty much in place, and barring any sort of unconstitutional change or undemocratic situation after Chavez's death, I would assume that will continue,” she said.
If Chavez is indeed dead, Arias said Chavismo would have a hard time going forward without its founder.
“The movement is named after him, after all,” she said.
More Venezuela coverage from NBC News
Vice President Nicolas Maduro, a former bus driver, is currently in charge.
Some Chavez opponents, such as recent presidential candidate Henrique Carpriles Radonski, contend that Chavez missing his own swearing-in should trigger a new election within 30 days.
But Rosenn, a constitutional lawyer, interprets the document differently.
“Article 231 says that the elected candidate is to be sworn in as president on Jan. 10, but then the last sentence says if for any unforeseen reason he can not take the oath, then he will be sworn in before the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, but it doesn’t say when,” Rosenn said.
And therein lies wiggle room for Chavez’s backers.
Despite calls for calm from both Chavistas and the opposition, it’s the threat of destabilizing violence that concerns Venezuela watchers in the U.S. most.
After all, unrest in the fourth-largest oil exporter to the United States could have a big impact on Americans.
And with Venezuela’s economy already in disarray and oil exports down by 30 percent in the past 15 years, no matter who is in charge, times ahead in that country are likely to be tough.
“If he’s dead,” Purcell said, “Chavez leaves behind a country that is in pretty bad shape.”
Follow NBC News correspondent Kerry Sanders on Twitter.
Related stories:
Venezuela's ailing Chavez unable to attend swearing-in, officials say
NBC's Kerry Sanders answers questions about Chavez re-election in Venezuela's elections
Venezuela's Hugo Chavez wins 3rd term, vows to deepen socialist revolution
Leave a Comment:
LATER BITCHES I'M OUT!!!!!!!!!! The kiss of death, often used by the mafia.........
I have seen few threads that have attracted so many political hacks, crazy liberals and downright crazy period. This could be because Chavez himself has a personality disorder. He is borderline and seeks attention. So this is either a ploy for more attention, for mystery, or the man really is dead. His being dead would be very good, for a lot of people.
Would anyone be surprised if it turns out that the CIA fed him plutonium in his Samovar?
Not me. As much as the US hates him nothing would surprise me. NOTHING.
He is probably at the White House having gay sex with rest of the Marxist groupies...
Dead or alive it doesn't matter. Chavez is no longer capable of leading the country and taking on the tasks of his position. So, if indeed he is alive, he should step aside for the good of the people. The medication he would need to take to treat his cancer is very powerful and would render him incapable, physically and mentally, to do the job. Time to move on.
KingK--you are assuming that Chavez thinks the good of the people/nation is more important that what HE wants.
In the past, he has changed his country's constitution to allow himself to keep being re-elected. what makes you believe he would step down for altruistic motives?
The irony would be if his cancer would have been curable had he gone to 'Cancer treatment Centers of America'.
A double Irony would be if he had become infected with Cholera while hospitalized in Cuba.
I don't. The man is, like most dictators, only concerned for himself. What he should do and what he will do are , obviously, two different things. But the people of V must come to the realization that Chavez, for all intents and purposes, is dead and must move on to select a new leader.
over there!,over there!...no idiot over there !!!.......He is at obama's inauguration.
And you will be sitting on his lap? Bouncing up and down, I bet!
You never did answer about why you changed names
Big "mystery." The Lord has had enough of this Anti-Semitic communist. Good Riddance You-Go! Let's Hope Hussein is not Far Behind.
And what do we in the U.S.A. have in with Latin American dictatorships, we have a President elected by a majority of poor people. Get ready to become another banana republic.
Perhaps Chavez secretly in Washington advising Obama on how to take down the US.
Our top story tonight: Hugo Chavez is still dead! El Jefe Chavez is fighting valiantly in his struggle to remain dead.
Hey,it takes time to find and train a look alike who can pass for Hugo.
Just got word that a crew of animatronics engineers from Disney just arrived in Havana to get Hugo up and going in his new life as an electronic puppet for the military government in Venezuela to use to run their country. Unfortunately for Venezuela, Disney required cash up front to do the job, so Venezuela is now out of money to fly Hugo home.
His passing would be good for all mankind. He is no good for his people and no good for the rest of the world. Sad, but true.
Maybe Chavez came across the border illegally so he can get some of our free medical care and then when Obama's amnesty program kicks in he can become an American citizen,How wonderful!
If his illness has not already killed him, and they are covering it up, it will very shortly. He is not well obviously.
Could be another Amerikan CIA coup. It wouldn't be the first time the US toppled a democratically-elected government to steal a nation's resources.
Just ask the Native American Nations (tribes, as our racist historians have called them, also they were called "savages" by our highly esteemed recorders of history)
Rich--'nice' misreading of history. The "native American Nations" ALSO came here from elsewhere, and 'took the land' they settled on. That is, unless they were warring with their neigboring 'nations' for control of THEIR lands.
Throughout the history of mankind, the STONGEST ALWAYS get the spoils.
So are you one of those who thinks we also have to allow Mexico/Mexicans free access to our country because 'they were here first'? I guess you'd be in favor, then, of all Guatemalans having the same rights to Mexico, since THEY were there 'firster'?
Oops, Mexico doesn't think so.
Ah, not to worry, as Hugo is no doubt lounging pool side in some exquisite Cuban resort being served mojitos and sucking on primo Cuban stogies by beautiful Cuban beauties. Only the good die young. And this mutt will have a longer life to live yet.
Just have Sean Penn step in as Commander In Chief. No worries.
He's dead!
If people were not greedy, jealous sots, then socialism might work. But, however, life does not present us with such character traits as would enoble the human species; thus the need for religion and the threat of hell or the promise of heaven. In Hugo's case, government has been substituted for religion.
Rich--actually, you have that only HALF right. When the Pilgrims came to the 'new world' THEY established a socialist settlement, and IT nearly failed, not because of greed or jealousy, but because SOME of the settlers didn't want to work hard, but wanted all the benefits of the community.
And therein lies the rub--it is JUST as 'greedy' to want for yourself what YOU did nothing to earn, taken away from someone who DID do something to earn it, as it is for THAT person to want to KEEP it.
And when the' have nots' have not only not earned it, but have spent their whole life not doing anything on their OWN to make it for themselves, the "haves'' DO get a little testy about supporting them.
And it becomes even WORSE when the 'have nots' continue to breed at will, expecting the 'haves' to pay for THOSE people, too.
The two surest predictors of living in poverty are NOT that someone else is not 'paying their fair share' but that the poor person did NOT finish school, (much less work HARD to learn all they could) and had babies too young, and too many of them.
Actor Sean Penn said he will seek power and take control and carry on his dear friends totalitarian rule.
As long as that son of a bitch is dead, that's all that matters to me. One less tirant in this world.
Time for wake and bake.
@say what
you know why, people like you who cant handle the truth about anything have to act like spoiled kids and throw a fit. my account has been closed so many times because of people like you. cant handle what people post so you report them...just like a a wuss.
as for the spelling, its gives me room to change it without changing it completely.
next time, man up and stop being a wimpy azz progressive idiot and argue a point instead of reporting like a wuss.
Chavez was just a puppet for the Castro dictatorship. Chavez was just a dumb little dictator aprentice. I feel bad for the ignorant poor Venezuelans the felt for the lie.