Editing Hugo Chávez (section)

===Second presidential term: 10 January 2001 – 10 January 2007===
Under the new constitution, it was legally required that new elections be held in order to re-legitimize the government and president. This [[2000 Venezuelan presidential election|presidential election in July 2000]] would be a part of a greater "megaelection", the first time in the country's history that the president, governors, national and regional congressmen, mayors and councilmen would be voted for on the same day.<ref>[[#Mar07|Marcano and Tyszka 2007]]. p. 140.</ref> Going into the elections, Chávez had control of all three branches of government.<ref name=Nelson1/> For the position of president, Chávez's closest challenger proved to be his former friend and co-conspirator in the 1992 coup, [[Francisco Arias Cárdenas]], who since becoming a governor of Zulia state had turned towards the political centre and begun to denounce Chávez as autocratic. Some of his supporters feared that he had alienated those in the middle class and the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy who had formerly supported him. Chávez was re-elected with 60% of the vote, a larger majority than his 1998 electoral victory.<ref name="ReferenceC">[[#Mar07|Marcano and Tyszka 2007]]. p. 141.</ref><ref name="Ramírez 2005. p. 79">[[#Ram05|Ramírez 2005]]. p. 79.</ref>

That year, Chávez improved ideological ties with the Cuban government of Fidel Castro by signing an agreement under which Venezuela would supply Cuba with 53,000 barrels of oil per day at preferential rates, in return receiving 20,000 trained Cuban medics and educators. In the ensuing decade, this would be increased to 90,000 barrels a day (in exchange for 40,000 Cuban medics and teachers), dramatically aiding the Caribbean island's economy and standard of living after its "[[Special Period]]" of the 1990s.<ref name="convenio">{{cite news |title=Conozca los acuerdos petroleros que dejó Hugo Chávez|url=http://www.finanzasdigital.com/2014/08/conozca-los-acuerdos-petroleros-que-dejo-hugo-chavez/|page=Finanzas Digital|date=22 August 2014|access-date=3 June 2017}}</ref> However, Venezuela's growing alliance with Cuba came at the same time as a deteriorating relationship with the United States. Chávez opposed of the [[War in Afghanistan (2001–present)|2001 American-led invasion of Afghanistan]] in response to the [[11 September attacks]] against the U.S. by Islamist militants. In late 2001, Chávez showed pictures on his television show of children said to be killed in a bombing attack. He commented that "They are not to blame for the terrorism of [[Osama bin Laden]] or anyone else", called on the American government to end "the massacre of the innocents", and describing the war as "fighting terrorism with terrorism." The U.S. government responded negatively to the comments, which were picked up by the media worldwide<ref>[[#Mar07|Marcano and Tyszka 2007]]. pp. 208–09.</ref> and recalled its ambassador for consultations.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/03/world/us-irritated-by-criticism-calls-envoy-home-from-venezuela.html|title=U.S., Irritated by Criticism, Calls Envoy Home From Venezuela|last=Rohter|first=Larry|date=3 November 2001|work=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref>

[[File:Mision robinson wayuu by Franklin Reyes.png|thumb|left|Chávez's second term in office saw the implementation of social missions, such as this one to eliminate illiteracy in Venezuela]]

Meanwhile, the 2000 elections had led to Chávez's supporters gaining 101 out of 165 seats in the Venezuelan National Assembly, and so in November 2001 they voted to allow him to pass 49 social and economic decrees. This move antagonized the opposition movement particularly strongly.<ref name="InternationalCrisisGroup07"/><ref>[[#Mar07|Marcano and Tyszka 2007]]. p. 143.</ref> At the start of the 21st century, Venezuela was the world's fifth largest exporter of [[crude oil]], with oil accounting for 85% of the country's exports, therefore dominating the country's economy. Before the election of Chávez, the state-run oil company, [[Petróleos de Venezuela S.A.]] (PDVSA) ran autonomously, making oil decisions based on internal guidance to increase profits.<ref name=":5">Wiseman, Colin and Daniel Béland. "The Politics of Institutional Change in Venezuela: Oil Policy During the Presidency of Hugo Chávez." ''Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies,'' Vol 35, No. 70 (2010), pp. 141–164. ''JSTOR''. Accessed 3 November 2018.</ref> Once he came to power, Chávez started directing PDVSA and effectively turned it into a direct government arm whose profits would be injected into social spending.<ref name=":5" /> The result of this was the creation of "[[Bolivarian missions]]", oil funded social programs targeting poverty, literacy, hunger, and more.<ref name=":5" /> In 2001, the government introduced a new Hydrocarbons Law through which it sought to gain greater state control over the oil industry. The law increased the transnational companies taxation in oil extraction activities to 30% and set the minimum state participation in "mixed companies" at 51%, whereby the state-run oil company, [[Petróleos de Venezuela S.A.]] (PDVSA), could have joint control with private companies over industry.<ref>{{cite web|access-date=27 July 2006|archive-date=17 August 2006|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060817050451/http://www.mpd.gov.ve/decretos_leyes/Leyes/ley_hidrocarburos.pdf|title=Ley Orgánica de Hidrocarburos aprobada en 2001|url=http://www.mpd.gov.ve/decretos_leyes/Leyes/ley_hidrocarburos.pdf}}<!-- auto-translated by Module:CS1 translator --></ref>{{Primary source inline|date=December 2022}} By 2006, all of the 32 operating agreements signed with private companies during the 1990s had been converted from being primarily or privately run to being at least 51% controlled by PDVSA.{{Citation needed|date=December 2022}} Chávez had also removed many of the managers and executives of PdVSA and replaced them with political allies, stripping the state-owned company expertise.<ref name=":6">{{cite web|url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/07/16/how-venezuela-struck-it-poor-oil-energy-chavez/|title=How Hugo Chávez Blew Up Venezuela's Oil Patch|last=Johnson|first=Keith|date=16 July 2018|website=[[Foreign Policy]]|language=en|access-date=21 July 2018|quote=The fuse for the bomb that is now blowing up Venezuela’s oil industry – and the country along with it – was deliberately lit and fanned by ... the strongman Hugo Chávez ...}}</ref>

====Opposition and the Coordinadora Democrática====
Much of Chávez's opposition originated from the response to the "cubanization" of Venezuela.<ref name="Nelson1"/> Chávez's popularity dropped due to his relationship with Fidel Castro and Cuba, with Chávez attempting to make Venezuela in Cuba's image.<ref name=Nelson1/> Chávez, following Castro's example, consolidated the country's [[bicameral legislature]] into a single [[National Assembly (Venezuela)|National Assembly]] that gave him more power<ref name=CONS/> and created community groups of loyal supporters allegedly trained as paramilitaries.<ref name=Nelson1/> Such actions created great fear among Venezuelans who felt like they were tricked and that Chávez had dictatorial goals.<ref name=Nelson1/>

The first organized protest against the Bolivarian government occurred in January 2001, when the Chávez administration tried to implement educational reforms through the proposed Resolution 259 and Decree 1.011, which would have seen the publication of textbooks with a heavy Bolivarian bias. Parents noticed that such textbooks were really Cuban books filled with [[Bolivarian propaganda|revolutionary propaganda]] outfitted with different covers. The protest movement, which was primarily by middle-class parents whose children went to privately run schools, marched to central Caracas shouting out the slogan ''Con mis hijos no te metas'' ("Don't mess with my children"). Although the protesters were denounced by Chávez, who called them "selfish and individualistic", the protest was successful enough for the government to retract the proposed education reforms and instead enter into a consensus-based educational program with the opposition.<ref name=Nelson1/><ref>[[#Mar07|Marcano and Tyszka 2007]]. pp. 143–45.</ref>

Later into 2001, an organization known as the ''{{lang|es|[[Coordinadora Democrática (Venezuela)|Coordinadora Democrática de Acción Cívica]]}}'' (Democratic Coordinator, CD) was founded, under which the Venezuelan opposition political parties, corporate powers, most of the country's media, the [[Venezuelan Federation of Chambers of Commerce]], the Institutional Military Front and the [[Central Workers Union]] all united to oppose Chávez's regime.<ref name="InternationalCrisisGroup07">[[#Int07|International Crisis Group 2007]]. p. 7.</ref><ref>[[#Ram05|Ramírez 2005]]. p. 80.</ref> The prominent businessman [[Pedro Carmona]] (1941–) was chosen as the CD's leader.<ref name="InternationalCrisisGroup07"/> [[File:Hugo Chávez on USS Yorktown.jpg|thumb|right|Chávez visiting the [[USS Yorktown (CG-48)|USS ''Yorktown'']], a U.S. Navy ship docked at [[Curaçao]] in the [[Netherlands Antilles]], in 2002]] The Coordinadora Democrática and other opponents of Chávez's Bolivarian government accused it of trying to turn Venezuela from a democracy into a dictatorship by centralising power among its supporters in the Constituent Assembly and granting Chávez increasingly autocratic powers. Many of them pointed to Chávez's personal friendship with Cuba's Fidel Castro and the [[Politics in Cuba|one-party socialist government in Cuba]] as a sign of where the Bolivarian government was taking Venezuela.<ref name="InternationalCrisisGroup07"/>

====Coup, strikes and the recall referendum====
{{Main|2002 Venezuelan coup d'état attempt|Venezuelan general strike of 2002–2003|Venezuelan recall referendum, 2004}}
[[File:Anti-chavez march.jpg|thumb|A 2004 rally against Chávez in [[Caracas]], demanding [[Recall election|his removal from the presidency]]]]

Chávez sought to make PDVSA his main source of funds for political projects and replaced oil experts with political allies to support him with this initiative.<ref name=":6" /> In early-2002, he placed a leftist professor as the president of PDVSA.<ref name=":6" /> In April 2002, Chávez appointed his allies to head the PDVSA and replaced the company's board of directors with loyalists who had "little or no experience in the oil industry", mocking the PDVSA executives on television as he fired them.<ref name=":6" /><ref name="CNNoil">{{cite news|last=Kahn|first=Jeremy|title=Pumping Trouble: A strike in Venezuela has raised temperatures in Caracas and oil prices around the world.|url=https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2003/02/03/336466/|access-date=21 April 2014|newspaper=CNN|date=3 February 2003 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140422232750/http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2003/02/03/336466/ |archive-date=22 April 2014}}</ref> Anger with Chávez's decisions led to civil unrest in Venezuela, which culminated in an attempted coup.<ref name=":6" /> On 11 April 2002, [[Llaguno Overpass events|during a march headed to the presidential palace]],<ref>[[#Mar07|Marcano and Tyszka 2007]]. pp. 171–72.</ref> nineteen people were killed, and over 110 were wounded.<ref>[[#Mar07|Marcano and Tyszka 2007]]. p. 168.</ref>

Chávez believed that the best way to stay in power was to implement [[Plan Ávila]].<ref name="p121134NELSON2">{{cite book|title-link= The Silence and the Scorpion |title=The silence and the scorpion : the coup against Chávez and the making of modern Venezuela|last1=Nelson|first1=Brian A.|date=2009|publisher=Nation Books|isbn=978-1568584188|edition=online|location=New York|pages=121–134}}</ref> Military officers, including General [[Raúl Baduel]], a founder of Chávez's [[MBR-200]], then decided that they had to pull support from Chávez to deter a massacre<ref name="p121134NELSON2"/> and shortly after at 8:00&nbsp;pm, Vásquez Velasco, together with other ranking army officers, declared that Chávez had lost his support.{{citation needed|date=August 2022}} Chávez agreed to be detained and was transferred by army escort to [[La Orchila]]; business leader [[Pedro Carmona]] declared himself president of an interim government.<ref>[[#Mar07|Marcano and Tyszka 2007]]. pp. 175–84.</ref> Carmona abolished the 1999 constitution and appointed a governing committee. Protests in support of Chávez along with insufficient support for Carmona's government quickly led to Carmona's resignation, and Chávez was returned to power on 14 April.<ref>[[#Mar07|Marcano and Tyszka 2007]]. pp. 181–85.</ref>

Chávez's response was to moderate his approach,{{Disputed inline|date=April 2020}} implementing a new economic team that appeared to be more centrist and reinstated the old board of directors and managers of the state oil company [[Petróleos de Venezuela S.A.]] (PDVSA), whose replacement had been one of the reasons for the coup.<ref>[[#Mar07|Marcano and Tyszka 2007]]. p. 185.</ref> At the same time, the Bolivarian government began to increase the country's military capacity, purchasing 100,000 [[AK-47]] assault rifles and several helicopters from Russia, as well as a number of [[Super Tucano]] light attack and training planes from Brazil. Troop numbers were also increased.{{Citation needed|date=December 2022}}

Chávez faced a [[Venezuelan general strike of 2002-2003|two-month management strike]] at the PDVSA.<ref name="BBCoil">{{cite news|last=Ceaser|first=Mike|title=Venezuelans hit by oil crisis|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/1913893.stm|access-date=21 April 2014|newspaper=BBC|date=5 April 2002}}</ref> The Chávez government's response was to fire about 19,000 striking employees for abandoning their posts and then employing retired workers, foreign contractors, and the military to do their jobs instead.{{citation needed|date=August 2022}} The total firing of tens of thousands of employees by Chávez would forever damage Venezuela's oil industry due to the tremendous loss of expertise.<ref name=":6" /> By 2005, the members of Venezuela's energy ministries stated it would take more than 15 years for PDVSA to recover from Chávez's actions.<ref name=":6" />

The 1999 constitution had introduced the concept of a recall referendum into Venezuelan politics, so the opposition called for such a referendum to take place. The resulting [[2004 Venezuelan recall referendum|2004 referendum to recall Chávez]] was unsuccessful. 70% of the eligible Venezuelan population turned out to vote, with 59% of voters deciding to keep the president in power.<ref name="Ramírez 2005. p. 79"/>

===="Socialism of the 21st century"====
[[File:Chavez e Lula.jpg|thumb|Hugo Chávez and Brazilian president [[Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva|Lula da Silva]], 2005]]
In January 2005, Chávez began openly proclaiming the ideology of "[[socialism of the 21st century]]", something that was distinct from his earlier forms of [[Bolivarianism]], which had been [[Social democracy|social democratic]] in nature, merging elements of capitalism and socialism. He used this new term to contrast the [[democratic socialism]], which he wanted to promote in Latin America, from the Marxist–Leninist socialism that had been spread by socialist states like the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China during the 20th century, arguing that the latter had not been truly democratic, suffering from a lack of participatory democracy and an excessively authoritarian governmental structure.{{citation needed|date=December 2022}}

In May 2006, Chávez visited Europe in a private capacity, where he announced plans to supply cheap Venezuelan oil to poor working class communities in the continent. The Mayor of London [[Ken Livingstone]] welcomed him, describing him as "the best news out of Latin America in many years."<ref>[[#Obs06|''The Observer'' 2006]].</ref>