Free Republic

The Miami Herald is reporting Hugo Chávez early demise was recognized long before the rest of the world was privvy to the details of a late diagnosed and lethal cancer. With the help of Cuban brothers Fidel and Raúl, and Chávez' hand-picked successor Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan presidential election was moved from December 2012 to October 2012, two months that the report says were crucial. In October Chávez could still stand before his supporters to applaud his re-election, but there was no certainty that he could do so in December. He returned to Cuba for a fourth round of cancer treatments in early...

Shortly after Hugo Chávez won his first election as Venezuelan president in December 1998, a lawyer from the western state of Barinas, which was then governed by Chávez's father, delivered a prescient warning to Newsweek magazine: "Venezuelans are dreaming of a savior, but Chávez is a dictator. People don't know what they are getting."  More than 14 years later, a cancer-stricken Chávez is reportedly near death, but his autocratic legacy is very much alive. Venezuela long ago ceased to be a real democracy: The ruling regime effectively controls the Supreme Court (which in 2004 was expanded and packed with Chávez allies), the National Assembly...