First of all, Chávez is considered a “great” leader by all Venezuelans in terms of popularity, not necessarily in terms of “greatness"'. Having considered this, is hard to give a complete answer because the reasons of why some people become popular leaders are not only due to factual economics but to do with psychology, historical precedents, sociological context and who nows what else…
Most people that lived his rise to leadership will say that he managed to give a voice and hope to a section of the population that never got a fair share of Venezuela's colossal riches derived from oil exports. He provided a credible, quasi religious messianic narrative that made most Venezuelans believe that his tenure was a sort of rapture giving way to a paradisiac future of justice, freedom and wealth. Not unlike many other (popular rather than great) leaders of the past have managed to do: Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Evita Peron, Trump…the list is big!
Of course, as you can evidently see in the news, the success of his tenure is hotly disputed by Venezuelans, with almost all current political, economic, social and cultural successes or failures still being attributed to Chavez' legacy.
676 viewsView 1 upvote
1
1
1 comment from Abraham Hengyucius
Promoted by Hotjar