What to make of the news that Hugo Chávez has cancer? asked the Guyana Stabroek News in an editorial. The health of the Venezuelan president has been the subject of rumor for weeks. In June, while on a trip to Cuba, the leftist firebrand had what was billed as emergency surgery to remove a pelvic abscess. After the “normally voluble” Chávez wasn’t heard from for nearly two weeks, Venezuelans began murmuring that their president must have cancer, a rumor that was repeatedly denied by regime officials only to be confirmed by Chávez himself last week. But the president still refused to say where the tumor was—his prostate? Or worse, his pancreas?—or whether he was receiving chemotherapy or radiation treatment. Withholding information has not only fueled more speculation but also “created the impression that no one knows what is going on and, by extension, no one is in charge.”
For a while there, nobody was, said Eugenio G. Martínez in the Venezuelan El Universal. Chávez’s absence left a leadership vacuum while the country was in the middle of “a major energy crisis and a bloody prison riot.” Now, for the first time, “the regime is confronting the major weakness of Chávez’s Bolivarian Revolution: The leader has no heir.” This is partly by design, of course. Chávez has put loyalty to himself before loyalty to the state. He has been quick to squelch any rival to his power, so even his top lieutenants keep low profiles. Approval ratings of the leading members of his party, including cabinet secretaries, languish in the low 30s. While Chávez has done the country a great service in connecting with the poor and improving their lot, Chavism as a political movement has a limited future.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
Malaysia: Hiding something or just incompetent?feature It is “painful to watch” how Malaysia has embarrassed itself before the world with its bungled response to the missing plane.
-
Tunisia: The only bloom of the Arab Spring
feature After years of “stormy discussions and intellectual tug-of-war,” Tunisia has emerged as a secular democracy.
-
Australia: It takes two to reconcile
feature To move beyond Australia’s colonialist past, we Aborigines must forgive.
-
Israel: Ariel Sharon’s ambiguous legacy
feature Ariel Sharon played a key role at every major crossroads Israel faced in his adult life.
-
South Africa: Trying to live up to Mandela
feature That South Africa was prepared for the death of Nelson Mandela is one of his greatest legacies.
-
China: Staking a claim to the air and the sea
feature China has declared an air defense identification zone over the East China Sea that includes a set of islands claimed by Japan.
-
China: Is our aid to the Philippines too meager?
feature China donated $100,000 to the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan, but later increased the amount to $1.6 million.
-
Philippines: A calamitous response to calamity
feature “Where is the food, where is the water? Where are the military collecting the dead?”