Top stories this week are likely to include: Venezuela announces new presidential elections; Falkland Islands/Malvinas inhabitants vote on political status; Signatories of the American Convention on Human Rights meet to discuss IACHR reforms; the papal conclave begins Tuesday; Lima Mayor Susana Villarán faces a recall vote on Sunday.

Venezuelan Elections to be Held on April 14: Venezuela’s Consejo Nacional Electoral (National Electoral Council—CNE) announced on Saturday that elections will be held on April 14 to elect the successor of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. Venezuela’s interim president, Nicolás Maduro, was sworn in on Friday and will run against opposition leader Henrique Capriles, who announced his candidacy Sunday night. Capriles lost last October’s presidential elections to Chávez by 11 percentage points, and he was about 10 percentage points behind Maduro in polls conducted just prior to Chávez’ death.

Voters in the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Vote on Political Status: The 1,672 registered voters of the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) went to the polls on Sunday and Monday to vote on the disputed political status of their islands. In a yes-or-no referendum, they are responding to the question: "Do you wish the Falkland Islands to retain their current political status as an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom?" The islanders are expected to overwhelmingly support political affiliation with Britain, which has led Argentine lawmakers to call for an extraordinary session of the senate to reject the referendum. Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has said that that Argentina’s claim to the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) is a territorial issue that should not be subject to a popular referendum.

States Discuss IACHR Reforms in Guayaquil:  Representatives from 23 states that have ratified the American Convention of Human Rights are meeting in Guayaquil, Ecuador today to discuss proposed reforms to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). Ecuador has led a group of Latin American countries, including Venezuela and Nicaragua, in calling for changes to the Inter-American human rights system, but critics say the reforms could dramatically reduce the power of the IACHR to address human rights violations as they arise. The meeting in Guayaquil, originally scheduled for March 8, was postponed after news of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’ death last week. The OAS will convene an Extraordinary Session on March 22 to vote on the proposed reforms. Read more about the IACHR Reforms here.

Papal Conclave to Begin on Tuesday: One hundred and fifteen Catholic cardinals will vote to elect the next pope when the papal conclave begins this Tuesday in the Sistine Chapel. The new pope must be selected with a two-thirds majority vote, and if no one is chosen on the first day of the conclave, another four rounds of ballot-submission may take place on Wednesday and every day following that. The current favorite to succeed Pope Benedict XVI is Italian Cardinal Angelo Scola, according to betting companies, though candidates from Ghana, Brazil and Argentina are reportedly in the mix.

Lima’s Susana Villarán Faces Recall: Lima polling company CPI found that 49.6 percent of voters polled plan to vote in favor of recalling Lima Mayor Susana Villarán, while 41 percent of voters indicated that they would vote against recalling the mayor. The recall vote is scheduled for next Sunday, March 17. Villarán was elected in October 2010 and is Lima’s first-ever female mayor, but she has faced serious popular criticism after enacting major reforms to Lima’s transportation system and its informal economy. Villarán urged supporters to vote “no” to the referendum, while Marco Tulio Gutiérrez, who is leading the recall campaign, was criticized for telling voters, “women love to say no, so they can later say ‘yes.’”

Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez has died of cancer, leaving a power vacuum that will be hard to fill in the oil-rich country. After Vice President Nicolás Maduro’s announcement of the president’s death, Minister of Foreign Affairs Elías Jaua announced on March 6 that elections would be called in 30 days, as the constitution stipulates, and clarified that Maduro would maintain executive powers until then.

The constitution cast doubts over the legality of Maduro’s temporary succession. It decrees that if the death or incapacitation of the president takes place before a new president is sworn in—as occurred in Venezuela—the head of the national assembly, not the vice president, should take on executive powers until elections take place.

The government declared seven days of mourning for the president and suspended classes nationwide. Maduro said that the armed forces and the national police would be on the streets to prevent violence.

According to the government, Chávez had been undergoing chemotherapy treatment at the Carlos Arvelo military hospital in Caracas, although no pictures or film footage has corroborated that and no one other than top government officials has attested to seeing him there. The president last appeared in public on December 9, 2012, when he appointed Maduro as vice-president and called on the ruling Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (United Socialist Party of Venezuela—PSUV) and the armed forces to back Maduro if he had to assume presidential responsibilities. The Supreme Court indefinitely postponed Chávez's presidential swearing-in ceremony on January 10, 2013.  The court also ruled that Maduro and the rest of the ministers from the 2007-2013 presidentialterm would remain in their posts for the 2013-2019 term.

More than 30 heads of state traveled to Caracas for the funeral of Hugo Chávez, the president of Venezuela since 1999 and the architect of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) who passed away on Tuesday after a two-year battle with cancer. Upon his arrival, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said, "he was a dear friend of all nations worldwide; he was the emotional pillar for all the revolutionary and freedom-seeking people of the region and the world."

The long list of world leaders and delegations expected to attend include Cuban President Raúl Castro, Chilean President Sebastián Piñera, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, Bolivian President Evo Morales, Uruguayan President José Mujica, Peruvian President Ollanta Humala, and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega. Beyond Ahmadinejad, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko is also confirmed. In representation of President Barack Obama, the U.S. State Department sent a delegation comprised of U.S. Representative Gregory Meeks (NY), former Congressman William Delahunt (MA) and diplomat James Derham.

Chávez lay in a half-open, glass-covered casket in the military academy’s hall, wearing olive green military gear, a black tie and the iconic red beret symbolic of his 14-year socialist rule. The government declared that more than 2 million people had come to pay their respects since Wednesday. Chávez’s body will be embalmed and kept in a glass casket similar to other socialist leaders such as Ho Chi Minh, Vladimir Lenin, and Mao Zedong. After the funeral, his body will be transported to the military headquarters from where he commanded a failed coup in 1992.

National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello said Vice President Nicolás Maduro would be formally sworn-in as acting president at 7:00 p.m. on Friday, and that he would “call for elections.” The National Electoral Council (CNE) is tasked with setting a date for the elections, which must be called within 30 days according to the Venezuelan constitution.

Una versión de este artículo se publicó originalmente en el portal Infobae América

“Con profundo dolor, la Delegación de Paz de las FARC-EP, se une al duelo de los bolivarianos de Venezuela y del mundo ante la noticia descorazonadora, triste, del fallecimiento del Comandante Presidente, Hugo Chávez.”

Las condolencias de las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) fueron enviadas entre el maremágnum de pésames que el mundo entero dio a Venezuela: Sin embargo, no pasaron desapercibidas en el contexto político colombiano ante la innegable influencia que tuvo el fallecido líder bolivariano sobre el conflicto que azota al país hace medio siglo.

El presidente Juan Manuel Santos, quien recompuso las relaciones con Venezuela a su llegada al poder, también reconoció el papel de Hugo Chávez en el proceso de paz. “Si hemos avanzado en un proceso sólido de paz, con procesos claros y concretos, es también gracias a la dedicación y el compromiso sin límites del presidente Chávez”, dijo desde la Casa de Nariño.    

Fruto de una enconada pelea diplomática, Chávez despertó más odios que amores en Colombia durante los ocho años de presidencia de Álvaro Uribe. Venezuela—país que hoy se desempeña como garante de los diálogos—fue acusado de dar albergue a las FARC y patrocinar la lucha armada de la guerrilla. Estas denuncias tuvieron su punto más álgido tras el hallazgo de las computadoras del número dos de las FARC, Raúl Reyes, quien falleció tras un bombardeo del ejército colombiano en Sucumbíos, Ecuador, en 2008.

Los mensajes encriptados de las computadoras de Reyes fueron estudiados por el Instituto Internacional de Estudios Estratégicos (IISS), el cual reveló que Chávez se reunió en el año 2000 al menos dos veces con el líder guerrillero, y que habría prometido $300 millones para ayudar a la subversión colombiana en su lucha armada. Ecuador y Venezuela siempre impugnaron la veracidad de esas pruebas. Estos hechos provocaron la ruptura de las relaciones económicas entre Colombia y Venezuela, mientras Chávez acusó al gobierno colombiano de haber violado la soberanía ecuatoriana. Consecuentemente, el presidente bolivariano ordenó el envío de tanques hacia la frontera con Colombia y solicitó el retiro de todo el personal de la embajada de Venezuela en Bogotá.

La guerra verbal entre los dos países se atizó de tal forma que la mediación que Chávez estaba ejerciendo en la liberación de rehenes fue suspendida por Uribe. Santos, entonces su Ministro de Defensa, había sido el mayor detractor de este protagonismo de Chávez al considerar que el mandatario venezolano había usado las liberaciones como” propaganda política,” aprovechándose “del drama humanitario de los rehenes”.

Durante los ocho años de uribismo Santos fue un acérrimo detractor de Chávez y fue el primero que denunció la existencia de campamentos de las FARC en la frontera venezolana. También fue crítico del fin de la relación de Caracas con la Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) al señalar que “buena parte de la droga colombiana sale por Venezuela”. Como resultado, durante la campaña electoral del 2011 en la cual Santos se fungía como el heredero legítimo de Uribe, Chávez llegó a calificarlo de “mafioso” y sostuvo que su elección significaría más guerra y menos posibilidades de reactivar el comercio bilateral.

Pero fue Santos quien le apostó a mejorar las relaciones con su vecino y le dio un lugar importante en la agenda colombiana. Escándalos como las revelaciones El Nuevo Herald sobre el conocimiento de Chávez de los vínculos su ex ministro de Defensa, Henry Rangel Silva con narcos y las FARC habrían sido un detonante para la diplomacia binacional, pero no en la era Santos: el presidente prefirió guardar silencio ante el caso.

Santos, quien sin duda prefirió la diplomacia a la confrontación, también le concedió a Venezuela la extradición del narcotraficante Walid Makled, capturado en Colombia en 2011, de quien se esperaba que de ir a Estados Unidos hablaría sobre la relación de funcionarios venezolanos con negocios ilegales como lavado de dinero y narcotráfico.

Tras la muerte del mandatario venezolano, figuras como el senador Juan Fernando Cristo, aseguró que “gústele a quien le guste, independientemente de las diferencias que pudimos tener los colombianos con muchas de las actitudes, Chávez fue clave para el proceso de paz”. Piedad Córdoba, ex legisladora cercana al fallecido presidente, lloró ante las cámaras al recordar emotivamente que Chávez fue un hombre “que amó a su gente y buscó la paz para Colombia.”

Chávez fue generoso con los colombianos en Venezuela a quienes ceduló masivamente—con propósitos electorales por supuesto. También fortaleció los programas de refugio y asilo los cuales, a pesar de no ser ideales, permiten proteger a más nacionales huyendo del conflicto.

Es improbable que su muerte desvié el curso de las conversaciones de paz, pero un cambio de timón en la política venezolana podría replantear por lo menos la política de defensa fronteriza. Lo cierto es que el líder bolivariano dejó una profunda huella tanto en Colombia, como en Latinoamérica y en el mundo.

Grief mixed with uncertainty over Cuba's future on Wednesday as the island mourned the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. Granma, the Communist Party newspaper, changed the color of its masthead from red to black for the first time to commemorate the loss of the regime's closest ally, and dedicated six of its eight pages to Chávez' life. In a television addressed to the nation, the Cuban government pledged "resolved and unwavering support for the Bolivarian Revolution in these difficult days" and ordered an official mourning period through Friday. 

The Cuba-Venezuela alliance isn't only one of aligned ideologies. Cuba receives over 100,000 barrels of oil a day from Venezuela in exchange for thousands of Cubans working in Venezuelan clinics and schools. Cubans will take some comfort in the fact that interim President Nicolás Maduro seems likely to win the election that must be organized within 30 days, despite a second challenge by Governor of Miranda Henrique Caprilles Radonski. A chavista win would guarantee continued Venezuelan patronage in the short term.

But if Venezuela's oil exports to Cuba dry up—whether due to political turnover or economic crisis—the Communist regime does not have a clear backup plan or other ideological allies that would readily step to fill the gap.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who died of cancer on Tuesday in Caracas, will be remembered by some as a tireless man, as a tireless dreamer, who led and designed a socialist project for Venezuela meant to empower the country’s poor and to deeply transform the social and moral fabric of the oil-rich nation.

He will be remembered by some as an unconventional man of epic historical import; a military man from a humble, rural household who rose to the highest political office in the country; a man who developed, in his 14 years as president, an almost sacred bond with the poor and the voiceless; a showman; a jester; an international figure of long, passionate speeches; a man who, in life, had already achieved the presence and size of a legend.

Today, Venezuela’s crime-ridden capital city of Caracas—the place that witnessed Chávez’s failed coup attempt in 1992 and gave him multiple victories at the ballot box—moves in silence.

The sudden panic that ensued in the hours following the news of the president’s passing has now subsided into a somber calm as Chávez’s supporters prepare to bury their leader.

Late Tuesday night, the Venezuelan government declared seven days of national mourning. The president’s funeral, scheduled to last until Friday, is expected to bring a countless number of Venezuelans into the streets of Caracas.

In the midst of everything that involves the passing of a recently re-elected president, many unanswered questions loom in the minds of Venezuelans—among them, those that pertain to the short-term political future of the country.

Latin Americans are mourning the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who passed away at age 58 on Tuesday. Just hours before Chávez died, Venezuelan Vice President Nicolás Maduro had accused Venezuela’s enemies of “attacking” the leader with cancer and expelled two U.S. Embassy officials for allegedly conspiring against the deceased president.  The president’s body will be taken in a procession through Caracas to the Military Academy where it will lie in state until his funeral on Friday.

Despite ideological differences, the president’s death sent shockwaves of grief across the region. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff called for a moment of silence and said that although Brazil did not always agree with his actions, Chávez was a “generous man to all the people in this continent who needed him.” The Cuban government ordered all flags flown at half-staff and declared an official mourning period through Friday. Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner suspended all presidential activities after the announcement, while Chile, Ecuador and Colombia sent their condolences to the mourning nation. Bolivian President Evo Morales, Peruvian President Ollanta Humala and Uruguayan President José Mujica are expected to travel to Caracas for Chávez’ funeral.

Condolences also poured in from Venezuela’s overseas allies: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced a day of mourning and compared the fallen leader to a saint, while Russian president Vladimir Putin hailed Chávez as “an extraordinary and strong man” and Hua Chunying, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, called Chávez "a good friend to the Chinese people." Meanwhile, Henrique Capriles, Chávez’ chief opponent in last year’s presidential elections, took to Twitter to stress the need for respect and unity amongst all Venezuelans and sent his condolences to Chavez’ family and supporters, saying that while they were adversaries, they were never enemies.

The official funeral ceremony for heads of state will take place on Friday at 10:00am at the Military Academy in Caracas. Under the Venezuelan Constitution, a new election must be held in 30 days after the president dies or steps down. Venezuelan Vice President Nicolás Maduro, Chávez’ handpicked successor, will step up as the interim president and is expected to run against Capriles, who led a spirited opposition campaign in October.

Hugo Chávez died today at the age of 58. While many of his obituaries will focus on his voluminous political legacy, the day-to-day issues he leaves behind are enormously complex. Eventually, they are sure to overshadow any historical discussion about the man.

Politically, his movement is orphaned. Chávez was not only president of Venezuela, he was also president of his party, commanding every detail—from which candidates ran where to which judges had to be fired. His tenuous political coalition—made up of community leaders, the military, old-style communists and entrepreneurs looking to make a quick buck—was only held together by the sheer force of the president’s charisma, which punished dissent swiftly and mercilessly. With Chávez gone, it’s not clear who will make the decisions, or who will keep the tensions among these factions at bay.

Economically, the Chávez legacy is horrendous. The Venezuelan economy consists of a series of distortions piled upon further distortions. Price controls, labor rigidities, foreign exchange controls, clogged ports, and crumbling highways are the norm in Venezuela. Together with a rapacious public sector, a crippling budget deficit, and an underperforming banking sector, the Venezuelan economy is a veritable ticking time bomb held up only by sky-high oil prices that, amazingly, are not enough to sustain the ever-growing chavista State. And while poverty has fallen thanks to massive government spending, this cannot survive a slight dip in oil prices.

In addition, Venezuelans are suffering from one of the worst crime waves any nation not engaged in civil war has ever seen. The government seemingly has no clue on how to tackle the problem. As program after program fails, the government blames the media—or some fictional capitalist culture.

Venezuelans have been in suspended animation ever since December, when the president—in his last public appearance—announced he was going back to Cuba for treatment and named his successor. Ever since that day, life in Venezuela has been a swirl of rumors, indecision and surreal policy-making that even saw the Supreme Court decide that Chávez didn’t have to be sworn in, as the Venezuelan constitution mandates.

Now, that is in the past. A glorious funeral will ensue, and Nicolás Maduro may very well ride the public’s outpouring to an election win. But soon, he will have to come to terms with a political system that has stopped working, and with an economy in tatters.

Congratulations on your inheritance, Mr. Maduro.

I must admit, I was shocked when the e-mail a colleague had written me flashed on my desktop yesterday. “Chávez is dead.”  It wasn’t like I wasn’t expecting it.  But like the Chavista advisors that staged the bizarre, incoherent press conference shortly before they announced the Venezuelan President’s death, I was oddly taken aback. 

In my defense, unlike them I didn’t have the responsibility—or advantage—of preparing the last near-three months. Amazingly, despite the lead time, in what was later revealed to really be their first post-Chávez press conference, Vice President Nicolás Maduro and the cabinet seemed completely out of sync—first an interminable series of introductions and then incredible allegations of U.S. intervention.  And then—almost as an afterthought hours later—the announcement that Chávez was dead.

For the last decade or so, being witness to the Chávez government made me feel like  I had a front-row seat to the sort of Latin American history that I had studied as an undergrad and grad student. This time, though, there were real human beings and their lives at risk.  But it still—I’m embarrassed to say—felt thrilling.

I sort of came of political-analyst age in the Chávez era.  Oddly, I’ll always appreciate the beret-wearing putschist for that. 

I remember when I arrived in Washington DC in 1995.  Many people said that the region had gotten boring; we all seemed to be marching toward free trade and democratic bliss. 

And then came Hugo Chávez.  I was visiting Venezuela for a trip for the National Endowment for Democracy in 1998 when he was running for president.  At the time, his opponents were a motley crew: a former Ms. Universe; a Yale-educated politician who arrived at political rallies on a white horse; and a 70-year-old traditional politician of the center left. At the time I was sure I would have voted for this charismatic figure, Chávez.   My cost-free support for the former coup-plotter was bolstered when a prominent businessman confided to me in hushed tones that he had met with candidate Chávez in a closed-door meeting with business leaders and that he had listened, seemed to understand and quietly supported their cause.  “The thing is,” he said, “you put that Rolex on his wrist [and all the perks of power] and he’ll moderate.” 

Seemed like a good strategy to me. Vote for the outsider candidate who would clean up the annoying elements of the past, but still get a moderate outsider. 

Only it didn’t work out that way.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has died, Venezuelan Vice President Nicolás Maduro announced this evening. Since the president’s return home from Cuba on February 18, Venezuelan supporters have gathered to pray for the health of the president, which has been in decline for weeks. The death of the 58 year-old Chávez, who was re-elected to a fourth term as president last October, ends his fourteen years as president of Venezuela.

Over the weekend, Chávez opponents gathered to demonstrate in Caracas and demand news on the president’s health, which they said was being concealed by the Venezuelan government. Chávez had not been seen in public since a December 11 cancer surgery in Havana. Members of Venezuela’s opposition movement, including Miranda state Governor Henrique Capriles, have accused the government of lying to the public about the president’s health.

Chávez government officials denied that the government was concealing information about the president from the Venezuelan public. On Monday, Venezuelan Communications Minister Ernesto Villegas said that the president had been experiencing “highs and lows” in his health status and indicated that the president’s condition was worsening after suffering a severe respiratory infection following “a strong chemotherapy treatment.” Several weeks ago, the government revealed that Chávez, who was breathing through a tracheal tube, was unable to speak.

Guillermo Cochez, Panama’s former ambassador to the OAS, told NTN24 that Chávez had experienced brain death in late December—long before his return to Venezuela—and said that the president had been disconnected from life support machines for the last four days. Cochez’ assertions have yet to be confirmed.

It is still not clear what type of cancer Chávez suffered from. He was diagnosed with cancer in June 2011, and a “softball sized tumor” was discovered in his pelvic region. After the diagnosis, he underwent three operations as well as chemotherapy and radiation treatment—most of which were performed in Cuba.

Also unclear is what will happen in Venezuela in the wake of Chavez’ death. Under the Venezuelan Constitution, Diosdado Cabello, the president of Venezuela’s national assembly, is expected to assume interim presidency.