And by a comfortable 14 point margin. As the article below points out, Chavez was facing a competent and credible opponent, leading a (for once) unified opposition. Contrary to the mouthings of certain Republicans, this election really should seal Chavez's legitimacy. Chavez engages in quite a bit of anti-American bombast--& there is no doubt he hates neoliberal colonialism--but I believe his using anti-American rhetoric to talk about neoliberalism is mostly for domestic consumption. It is regrettable though. Even if the Obama Administration wanted to be nice to Chavez, there is no politically feasible way that it could.
And to put it somewhat flippantly, his canoodling with Russia, Iran and China is merely an effort to find friends in a largely unfriendly world--rather like Israel did with apartheid South Africa.
Now I know brain-dead "movement conservatives" and Tea Party types have little use for nuance and will never read this, but I can't help myself:
Despite his friendship with Fidel Castro and the symbolic redshirts of his supporters, Chavez is not a Marxist. He himself has so stated and contrasted himself explicitly with Fidel. He belongs to a mostly unheralded but real tradition of Christian socialism. (Although I would not be disturbed if he *was* a Marxist. In any case, I tend to hold with the early Niebuhr that Marxism is a Jewish or Christian heresy..."misguided Children of Light" as Niebuhr describes the hard Communist position. (In the early part of *The Revolution Will not Be Televised* there is a scene in which Chavez in a conversation with the filmmakers alludes to his reading of Sartre--at that point I was ready to conclude that if Chavez is a mere caudillo, he is a "good" one).
But to expand the article below a little: The 2002 coup attempt against Chavez had to do with his government's efforts to get more control of the giant oil company, PDVSA. Although nominally owned by the state, the company was actually ran for the benefit of Venezuela's long ruling oligarchs.
Here's the article: http://www.france24.com/en/20121008-venezuela-hugo-chavez-elected-third-term-socialist-president-henrique-capriles
And if you want to get down in the weeds about Venezuela's economy during the Chavez years, here's economist Marc Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research:
And for an earlier assessment:
Chavez now has the chance to consolidate his "Bolivarian" socialist revolution. Whether or not he succeeds in that task, this election was important because Chavez has been the lynchpin for the govenments that have come out of *genuine* democratic and grassroots politics in all of Latin America.
Chavez is a cancer survivor. If he has to step down because of health before he has completed four years of his six year term, it will be necessary for new elections to be held early.
But whatever happens after Chavez is gone, even most of the opposition agrees there will be no going back to the old oligarchic pseudo-democracy.
http://gg9-tto.blogspot.com/
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