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Prior to Chavez' election, the country had oligarchic rule for 40 years under two parties competing (like Republicans and Democrats) "to represent the petrol-rentier oligarchy, powerful importers, and the real estate-financial speculative elite." Both parties "pillaged the public treasury" until Chavez won office in December 1998 and reformed the system. He survived the Washington-backed April 2002 coup, the later in the year-early 2003 oil management lockout, the August 2004 recall election, and remains the most popular political figure in the country.
It's prospered under his leadership, and Venezuelans have benefitted by policies delivering beneficial social change. Chavez deepened the nation's democracy through:
-- elected community councils;
-- encouraging, promoting and financing "a vast array of neighborhood cooperatives, peasant organizations and trade unions;
-- "weakening....linkages between the oligarchic political and economic elites" and reducing authoritarian power over civil society;
-- establishing publicly financed television and community radio stations to challenge the corporate media's control of information;
-- supporting free expression, including by his fiercest opponents; and
-- conducting free, fair, and open democratic elections that shame America's rigged ones favoring a corrupted two-party oligarchy.
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