Hugo Chávez was an army officer who became president of Venezuela in 1998, launching a nationalist and socialist revolution known as the Bolivarian revolution. Charismatic and with the popular touch, he forged an emotional bond with millions of poor Venezuelans through hours-long live television broadcasts—social media were then in their infancy—even as essential services were falling apart and the constitution was bent against the opposition.
In the 1960s and 1970s Venezuela was hailed as a model democracy. Then the oil price crashed, and Venezuela's democracy fell with it. Economic growth slowed and Chávez exploited the discontent. The catalyst was the caracazo of 1989, a wave of rioting in which some 400 people were killed, mainly by the police, after President Carlos Andrés Pérez, a social democrat elected in 1988, inherited a bankrupt country and imposed austerity. The caracazo inspired Chávez to stage a failed coup attempt in 1992. He was later elected president in 1998.
A crucial turning-point in the consolidation of Chávez's rule was a popular uprising against him in 2002, which turned into what he would claim was an attempted coup. The army refused to repress the opposition, prompting Chávez's brief resignation. He returned to power less than 72 hours later, after an opportunist conservative attempted to exploit the power vacuum.
Chávez nationalised the oil industry in 2007. He died in 2013, having chosen Nicolás Maduro as his successor. Under Chávez and then Maduro, the chavista project gradually dismantled checks, balances and individual freedoms, and more than 8m Venezuelans were forced to flee the country.
Government lies, and newspapers lie, but in a democracy they are different lies.