After 14 erratic years of Chávismo, which blended checkbook populism with personal fiat and intimidation of critics and rivals, this oil-rich South American nation has hit a wall.

Hugo Chávez’s House of Cards

by Mac Margolis

Latin America’s new democratic leaders 

rarely spoke against the excesses of Chávismo

El Comandante used his Machiavellian bag of tricks to fuel a spoils system and political juggernaut that Venezuelans worshiped. Now he’s dead. It’s time for the oil-rich nation to panic, writes Mac Margolis.

It was a farewell fit for a caudillo. Waving flags and wearing bright red berets, tens of thousands of Venezuelans poured into the streets of Caracas Wednesday, hoping to catch a glimpse of the flag-draped coffin bearing the remains of president Hugo Chávez, who died of cancer at age 58 on Tuesday.

More than a farewell, this “sea of red” in the streets was a dramatic display of how completely the leader of the so-called Bolívarian revolution for “21st-century Socialism” has kept Venezuela and much of Latin America in thrall for nearly a generation. As mourners wept and punched the air in grief, the heads of states of a dozen Latin nations flocked to the Venezuelan capital to pay tribute to the mercurial man of the people, whom Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff described as “a great leader, an inspiration, and a great friend.”

The public outpouring was a hint of the anguish still to come as this nation of 28 million comes to grips with the sudden absence of the outsize firebrand who put populism on steroids, made a sport of hectoring the superpowers, and now stands shoulder to shoulder with Latin icons like Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Argentina’s Juan Domingo Perón. “Chávez didn’t die. Chávez lives on in the people,” chanted the mourners in the funeral cortege, bringing downtown Caracas to a halt.

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