Reference no: EM131152223

Hugo Chavez. Chavez had won three national elections, was one of Time’s 25 most influential people in 2005 and 2006, and had led Venezuela since 1999. A gifted politician and orator who con- nected with the downtrodden, Chavez got elected as an outsider to address Venezuela’s pervasive in- equality and corruption. Sitting on some of the world’s largest oil deposits and with oil prices in- creasing tenfold while he served as president, Chavez was able to use this windfall in revenues to provide handouts to the poor, open clinics and subsidized grocery stores in poor neighborhoods, and lower the country’s poverty rate from 49 to 28 percent. But is Venezuela better off now than it was when Chavez took over the presidency? Chavez national- ized a number of privately held firms and placed political cronies with little business or technical ex- pertise in key leadership positions. Many of these companies are less productive and competitive than they had been in the past and are being propped up by oil revenues. Foreign investment in Venezuela is virtually nonexistent, as investors worry about their holdings being nationalized. Over 40 television and radio stations have been shut down; the courts, legislative bodies, and re- maining media outlets have been filled with Chavez loyalists; corruption and crime are at all-time highs; and 90 percent of murders go unpunished. Despite having the second-highest oil revenues in the world, Venezuela’s infrastructure is crumbling, infla- tion has spiraled out of control, food shortages oc- cur regularly, standards of living have fallen, and the country has a huge national debt. Was Hugo Chavez a hero or a destructive leader? Would your answer differ if you lived in a Venezue- lan slum or were a business owner whose company was nationalized?

From the above article, please answer the below questions:

1. Was Hugo Chavez a transformational or charismatic leader? What data would you need to gather to answer this question?