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Celebrating Chavez and the power to transform lives
25 years on from his becoming Venezuela’s president, Chavez should be remembered as a spark for 21st-century socialism, writes MATT WILLGRESS
President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez addresses crowds of supporters at the Camden Centre, London, May 2006

THIS month marks 25 years since Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias became president of Venezuela.

Chavez died just over 15 years later on March 5 2013, but his legacy lives on in the burgeoning anti-imperialist — and, in many places, anti-capitalist — movements that receive increasing support not only in Latin America, but across the global South.

In this sense, he stands with other giants of national liberation and socialist movements of past decades such as Thomas Sankara, Patrice Lumumba and, of course, Che Guevara.

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