Is Hugo Chávez, the first president of Venezuela with Amerindean and/or African ancestry?
T.M: Hugo Chávez is the first president with African heritage, much less mixed African and Indian heritage, and perhaps even more important, the first one who has consistently worked to develop policies that in some way direct all that oil wealth to the 80% of the population, people who have been pretty much kept out of all this wind fall from oil profits over the decades. And those people are not just defined by class, but there is a clear racial difference. All you have to do is look at the demonstrations that are against the current government. Like the more conservative, more right-wing politicians, you see that these marches are overwhelmingly white – almost to the person. Whereas when you see supporters of more progressive politics, leftist politics, in Venezuela they just say ‘Chavista,’ these are people who to a great extent are coming down from the poorer communities around Caracas and are clearly and unmistakably people of color, clearly more color than the opposition. S.R: S
