KINGSTON, Jamaica – AS WRENCHING as it may still have been for his mass of supporters around the world, few could claim that Tuesday's death of Hugo Chávez, the charismatic and controversial president of Venezuela, had been entirely unexpected.
There was a sense that statements in recent days by his deputy, Nicolas Maduro, about the deteriorated state of Chávez's health were preparing the Venezuelan public for the inevitable. In that regard, Chávez's February 18 return to Venezuela from Cuba might have been a coming home to die.
Indeed, the Venezuelan president was keenly aware of his own mortality and the fact, perhaps, that he was terminally ill. Before leaving for Havana last December for his fourth surgery for the cancer that eventually claimed his life, Chávez anointed Maduro as the man to whom Venezuelans should look “to continue, if I can't”.
