As I’m sure you know—–or, if you’ve watched any news or been to a news site in the last year—–Hugo Chavez is ailing. He has seemingly serious cancer (we don’t know the exact type and he won’t say how serious it is, nor would he be honest about it if it were terminal), and, in the last year, has been in Cuba getting treatment as much as he’s been ruling Venezuela.
Why is his cancer being treated in Cuba? Is it because doctors in Havana are just so vastly superior to those in Caracas? Not quite. It turns out Chavez feels safer there than he does in his own country. [Reports abound that he relies on Cuba’s spy agency more than his own, and the Castro brothers are more trusted than many of his own top generals.]
What does it say about a ruler who feels safer getting medical treatment in a different country? Who feels more vulnerable in his capital than in a foreign land an ocean away?
More importantly, what would happen if he died? And it may be more likely than you think.
Recently, he finally named a successor (his supposedly trusted Vice President) “in the event he must step down.” And I think we all know Chavez will only step down if it’s into a wooden box six feet under ground. But where does that leave the country of Venezuela, the price of oil, and the tangled web of geopolitics between “communist” nations (Russia/China/North Korea/Cuba) and the U.S.? My guess is…uhhh…well…mmmm…is “I don’t know” an acceptable answer?