Venezuela celebrates birthday of late leader Hugo Chavez

Hugo Chavez died five months ago, but that hasn’t stopped his hand-picked successor from holding week-long festivities honouring the late Venezuelan leader’s birthday.

The fiery former military officer who dominated the country’s political scene from the moment he took office in 1999 to his death in March this year, would have turned 59 yesterday.

President Nicolas Maduro is marking the occasion with public dances and concerts. He even plans to go house-to-house in some neighbourhoods bearing gifts and a message from the “supreme comandante.”

Chavez’s legacy however has divided the country, with about half the population blaming him or Maduro for the country’s miserable economy and sky-high crime rate.

Ground zero for the Chavez worship is the Cuartel de la Montana, an old fort on a Caracas hillside deep within a working-class pro-government neighbourhood. Over the years it has housed a military academy, government offices, and a military museum.

Today it is also a mausoleum for the late leader, who died after a long and agonising battle with cancer that captivated the attention of the nation for months.

Chavez’s marble sarcophagus is protected by an honour guard, and every day at 4:25 pm a cannon is fired to mark the moment the comandante died.

“I’m still crying for my presidente,” said Norelis Alvarez, a 44 year-old nurse, as she left the Cuartel.

Just outside the building, at the crest of a hill of tightly-packed dwellings adorned with murals of Chavez, stands a small chapel with painted wood walls and tin roof that overflows with flowers and candles.

At the altar, a poster of the “eternal comandante” hangs under a cross next to a clay bust of the late leader.

“Here, we’re going to cut his birthday cake,” said 48 year-old Elisabeth Torres. “Some say that I’m crazy, but I do it out of love. There is no other like my comandante,” she says with a gleam in her eyes.

Torres proudly describes herself as the custodian of the improvised temple of “Saint Hugo Chavez.”

Many Venezuelans are still adapting to the post-Chavez world, but as time goes by the shock of his death is giving way to the struggles of every day life.

Many loyalists, or Chavistas, acknowledge that things are tough and support Maduro – but others grumble that Maduro isn’t up to the task.

Yahaira Jimenez, 56, complains about the new president as she sits under an umbrella with cell phones chained to a table – she rents them to her working-class neighbours for use by the minute.

“With Maduro everything is worse,” she said. “We have to stand in line for meat, and walk far to get toilet paper.”

Jimenez dutifully voted for Chavez’s chosen successor in the April 14 election, which Maduro officially won by a 1.5 per cent margin, although opposition candidate Henrique Capriles claimed fraud and has yet to concede.

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