Was Chavez Really a Dictator?

I came to know the intense passion with which Hugo Chavez (1954-1913) was hated and adored when I taught at the University of Caracas some years ago. Chavez had attempted to grab power through a coup in 1992, and ended up in jail as a result. In 1999 he won enough votes to become president of Venezuela, and his 'barefoot supporters' launched a non-stop series of activities to keep him in power until 2013, when he died of cancer. Chavez had revised the Venezuelan constitution to effectively end term limits on his presidency, so he was 'president for life'.

What struck me about the situation in Venezuela was the intense passion with which Chavez was hated by his opponents, and there were millions of these, and adored by his supporters, and there were even more of these. There was little real communication and understanding between the two political camps, they were not listening to one another.

The intense passion and faith with which Chavez supporters poured out onto the streets to support him reminded me of scenes I had witnessed in Iran after the 1978-79 revolution, when Khomeini became absolute ruler. The ability of Chavez and Khomeini to mobilize the 'barefoot masses' was very similar: it was based on faith, emotions, and the promise of an ideal world - for Chavez an ideal socialist world, and for Khomeini an ideal world in the afterlife.

But the rise to power of Chavez and Khomeini was also based on hatred: intense hatred for an external enemy, in this case the United States. This theme of 'external threat leading to internal cohesion and strong support for the leader' is well known to psychologists.

Chavez had mass support, and he used it to gain almost total power - not yet as absolute as Khomeini achieved in Iran, but he was moving in that direction. Does that make him a dictator? What do you think? In THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DICTATORSHIP, I define dictatorship as, "Rule by a single person or a clique that is not elected through free and fair elections by the subject population and not removable through popular election, with direct control of a security apparatus that represses political opposition; without any independent legislative and judicial checks; with policies that reflect the wishes and whims of the dictator individual or clique rather than popular will; and with a high degree of control over the education system, the mass media, the communication and information systems, as well as the movement of citizens toward the goal of continuing monopoly power by the regime". Was Chavez a dictator?

WATCH A VIDEO ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DICTATORSHIP

link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1_BvJqoC-0