Bolivarian Revolution

The Bolivarian Revolution is a political process in Venezuela that was led by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, the founder of the Fifth Republic Movement and later the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), and his successor Nicolás Maduro. The Bolivarian Revolution is named after Simón Bolívar, an early 19th-century Venezuelan revolutionary leader, prominent in the Spanish American wars of independence in achieving the independence of most of northern South America from Spanish rule. According to Chávez and other supporters, the Bolivarian Revolution seeks to build an inter-American coalition to implement Bolivarianism, nationalism and a state-led economy. On his 57th birthday, while announcing that he was being treated for cancer, Chávez announced that he had changed the slogan of the Bolivarian Revolution from "Motherland, socialism, or death" to "Motherland and socialism. We will live, and we will come out victorious." As of 2018, the vast majority of mayoral and gubernatorial offices are held by PSUV candidates, while the opposition Democratic Unity (MUD) coalition won two thirds of parliamentary seats in 2015. Political hostility between the PSUV and MUD have led to several incidents where both pro-government and opposition demonstrations have turned violent, with an estimated 150 dead as a result in 2017. Several opposition figures have been subject to politically motivated detentions. Following the death of Chávez in 2013, the revolution has gone into social decline and the political and economic situation in Venezuela has rapidly deteriorated. Simón Bolívar has left a long lasting imprint on Venezuela's history in particular and South America in general. As a military cadet, Hugo Chávez was "a celebrant of the Bolivarian passion story". Chávez relied upon the ideas of Bolívar and on Bolívar as a popular symbol later in his military career as he put together his MBR-200 movement which would become a vehicle for his 1992 coup-attempt.