Chávez – Heart of the People (Chávez – Corazón del Pueblo) was the slogan for the 2012 presidential election campaign in Venezuela, convincingly won by President Chávez by approximately 12% or 1.4 million votes over imperialist candidate Capriles Radonski.

The campaign sound track in the video shows President Chávez on his way to postulate himself before the National Election Council (CNE) accompanied by a “red tide” of hundreds of thousands of supporters expressing their joy and enthusiasm for a great leader and statesman.

Volume Up!

Now all of these Venezuelans are in deep mourning after the premature death of Chávez at the age of 58. In fact, the whole country is still in shock almost a week after his passing.

Lines of at least two million people formed on the first day after the Bolivarian leader had been laid in state at the Military Academy and five days later people are still filing past his coffin, all day and throughout the night, to pay their last respects. This is expected to continue for many more days as the country is still in state of deep sadness and emotional turmoil as if each family in the country had lost their father or patriarch.

This is especially hard for the poor and humble citizens of Venezuela who loved President Chávez unconditionally since he was the only President who had actually cared for their well-being systematically. This started in earnest when he gained control of the national oil company, PDVSA, from the imperialist lackey oligarchs in December 2002. It was then that he began to sow the oil export revenues in the rightful owners of this natural resource – the Venezuelan downtrodden, poor and historically excluded.

In return Chávez was rewarded even as his love for all Venezuelans had been sown and flowered in the hearts and minds of his people. He simultaneously re-projected and consolidated the ideals of the Father of the Nation, the Liberator Simón Bolívar, into people’s consciousness. As a result Venezuelans became aware of their own national identity and were no longer an enslaved nation immersed in social poverty, on the northern shores of South America, serving as a gas station for the private cars in the US Empire.

Dead physically but alive spiritually

"His legacy will become increasingly clear in the coming years [and] it could be as enduring and important as that of Mahatma Gandhi."

Even just a few days after his passing there are clear signs that Chávez will become a historical and spiritual icon for the poor of the whole world in their struggle for human dignity in face of the structural and economic forces that have always oppressed them. He is not just a passive symbol of hope but still a living example of revolution and the class struggle of the excluded to gain their rights as human beings.

In physical terms his spirit has been liberated from his infirmity to inspire people everywhere that a better world is possible for them and future generations. His legacy will become increasingly clear in the coming years but it could be as enduring and important as that of Mahatma Gandhi who also inspired the whole world with his resistance against British imperialism in India. Time will tell and bear its fruits.

The immediate future

Chávez’s preferred successor to continue the revolutionary work he conceived, designed and initiated, is Nicolás Maduro Moros, Venezuela’s interim President and a close collaborator of President Chávez for more than twenty years.

Maduro will stand as Presidential candidate for the Bolivarian Revolution in elections due to be held on Sunday April 14th. The name of the opposition imperialist candidate – if they decide to offer one – has not been confirmed at the time of this writing.

“Chavismo has already become a political doctrine all over Latin America."

Despite reams of screed in the generally hated corporate media ranting about the “elections of the post Chávez era”, not one of them understand that “Chavismo” has already become a political doctrine all over Latin America. Post Chávez era is a misnomer as it will never exist. Chávez is already being elevated to the level of a spiritual leader. He is the modern day Christ of the Poor all over the planet.

Interim President Maduro has a clear mission in life - to continue Chávez’s doctrine in practical terms for the Venezuelan people and this will be written in electoral stone on April 14th when I for one, Arturo Rosales, expect him to receive the honor of more than 10 million votes from the Venezuelan people. Chavismo as a movement has probably doubled in numbers in the last week looking at the scenes being transmitted by state media from all four corners of the country.

There are clear signs that many oppositionists are now being born into Chavismo, jolted out of their media-programmed hatred of the man by our leader’s passing and have realized the universal importance of this great man – not just to Venezuela but to humanity as a whole. The irony is that Chávez is more powerful and inspirational dead than alive. This fact helps temper our sadness which should not be confused with weakness.

Effectively the votes cast on April 14th will be for Chávez in the figure of Maduro who so far, in an extremely difficult week, has proved himself to be a worthy, committed and capable political successor on this earth to his political and spiritual mentor, Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías.

My editor and greatest friend, Les Blough, will be writing and publishing more on President Chávez and his legacy in coming days and weeks. We will do our utmost via facts and even anecdotes to convey to US readers especially, how deeply embedded the spiritual power of Chávez is in the hearts and minds of Venezuelans and many other nationalities that had followed and admired his mission on earth.

In the meantime, physically disappeared as he may be, his ideas live on accompanied by his love, inspiration and example for all Venezuelans to follow.

Chávez is the Heart of the People and will be for many generations to come.

¡Chávez vive, la lucha sigue!