With what is going on in Venezuela, I have been asked by several people too young to know who was Hugo Chavez and why do i rant about how great he was?
I make no bones about, i thought the man was a shining example of what all World leaders should aspire to and you only have to look at the state of the Country that he inherited from the brutal right wing dictator Perez, and compare it to how it was when he left it in 2013, dying of Cancer.
In 1998, the majority of Venezuelans lived below the poverty line and after Chavez won the Presidential election he made it a priority to lance this particularly unpleasant boil.
He nationalised the country's oil reserves and set about using the revenue from the oil business to be used to finance social and development programmes.
Chavez began literacy campaigns, built free medical centres and hospitals and constructed schools in the poorest neighbourhoods as well as subsidising supermarkets to reduce the cost of food to the poorest families.
What Chavez did was not such a revolutionary idea, he just let the people keep the profits from the natural resources of their country to better their lives.
To compare 1998 to 2013 figures make astounding reading.
1,628 doctors in 1998, 19,571 in 2013, 250,000 free school meals in 1998 and in 2013 there was 1.8m.
Access to education dramatically increased, including more than 1 million people participating in free adult literacy classes, leading to Venezuela eradicating illiteracy by UN standards.
The 60% of the population in poverty in 1998 was down to below 30% and the Venezuelan economy grew by almost 80% with inflation down from 120% in 1998 to just under 20% and malnutrition related deaths fell by 50% during.
Don't expect those bent on condemning Chavez as a power crazed megalomaniac to applaud these impressive achievements, two Venezuelan students i spoke to about him complained that 'He only helped the poor' which is praise indeed although the irony was lost of them being International Students who were obviously doing okay, but the rest of us can maybe agree that he has set about solving the problems of the most vulnerable in Society, one year he even imported 124,000 toys from China and sold them at 20% of their price to hard up parents for their children's Christmas presents.
What Chavez had was oil being sold at $100 a barrel, what Maduro inherited when he took over was the oil being sold at $40 a barrel and that's where the problem's started but thanks to Chavez, for 15 years the lot of the poorest, illiterate, sick and hungry got better and he helped a lot of people which is a massive success in my book and there are not many politicians who can boast that after they leave office.
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