INILAH RIWAYAT HIDUP ORANG KUAT AMERIKA LATIN/VENEZUELA
PENENTANG BERBAGAI KEBIJAKKAN POLITIK AMERIKA SERIKAT/ANTI AMERIKA
 Mr Chavez has seen off mass protests and a coup attempt |
Hugo Chavez, who came to power in 1998, has been the subject of adulation and loathing both at home and abroad ever since.
Venezuelans are split between a majority who says he speaks for the poor, and those who say he has become increasingly autocratic.
The former army paratrooper - who first came to prominence as a leader of a failed coup in 1992 - has proved unable to bridge the huge gap between the country's rich and poor.
And his combative rhetoric has alienated and alarmed the country's traditional political elite, as well as several foreign governments.
The opposition has been trying to unseat the president by constitutional means since 2002, when Mr Chavez was briefly toppled in a short-lived coup. In 2004 the opposition managed to secure a referendum on his leadership.
But the vote only served to strengthen Mr Chavez. He won by a large majority and went on to win the 2006 presidential elections. 
Under the current Venezuelan constitution, Mr Chavez will have to stand down when his term expires at the end of 2012.
On 2 December he lost a national referendum aimed at getting approval for a series of constitutional changes which included abolishing presidential term limits and ending the autonomy of the Central Bank.
There were also proposals to expand presidential powers during natural disasters or political "emergencies".
Mr Chavez said the proposed changes would return power to the people, but critics accused him of a power grab.
From coup-leader to president
The ex-paratrooper's political career has more than eventful.
In February 1992 he led a doomed attempt to overthrow the government of President Carlos Andres Perez amid growing anger at economic austerity measures.
The foundations for that failed coup had been laid a decade earlier, when Mr Chavez and a group of fellow military officers founded a secret movement named after the South American independence leader, Simon Bolivar. 
The 1992 revolt by members of the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement claimed 18 lives and left 60 injured before Mr Chavez gave himself up.
He was languishing in a military jail when his associates tried again to seize power nine months later.
That second coup attempt, in November 1992, was crushed as well.
Mr Chavez spent two years in prison before being granted a pardon. He then relaunched his party as the Movement of the Fifth Republic and made the transition from soldier to politician.
Church attacked
By the time Mr Chavez was swept into power in 1998 elections, the old Venezuelan order was falling apart.
Unlike most of its neighbours, the country had enjoyed an unbroken period of democratic government since 1958.
But the two main parties that had alternated in power stood accused of presiding over a corrupt system and squandering the country's vast oil wealth.
Mr Chavez promised "revolutionary" social policies, and constantly abused the "predatory oligarchs" of the establishment as corrupt servants of international capital.
Never missing an opportunity to address the nation, he once described oil executives as living in "luxury chalets where they perform orgies, drinking whisky". 
Church leaders in this overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country fared no better.
"They do not walk in... the path of Christ," said Mr Chavez at one stage.
Whenever the media reported discontent with his rule, he generally accused it of being in the pay of reactionaries.
He courted controversy in foreign policy, too, making high-profile visits to Cuba and Iraq, while allegedly flirting with leftist rebels in Colombia and making a huge territorial claim on Guyana.
Devil comment
Relations with Washington reached a new low when he accused it of "fighting terror with terror" during the war in Afghanistan after 11 September.
The situation hardly improved when Mr Chavez accused the US of being behind the failed coup to oust him in 2002.
The country's vast oil reserves - the largest in the Americas - have given it a strategic importance, but the US state department denies trying to overthrow the president.
Mr Chavez's government has implemented a number of "missions" or social programmes, including education and health services for all. But chronic poverty and unemployment are still widespread, despite the country's oil wealth. 
Mr Chavez is renowned for his flamboyant public speaking style, which he puts to use in his weekly live TV programme, Alo Presidente (Hello President), in which he talks about his political ideas, interviews guests and sings and dances.
It was during one Mr Chavez' shows - in February 2007 - that Cuban leader Fidel Castro, a long-time friend and ally, made his first live broadcast since passing power to his brother Raul in July 2006 due to ill health.
However, Mr Chavez' outspokenness has also sparked immense controversy.
In September 2006, Mr Chavez delivered a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in which referred to US President George W Bush as "the devil".
The speech was met with applause in the UN, but was roundly condemned by US politicians and pundits.
In November 2007 Mr Chavez fell out with Spain after a run in with King Juan Carlos during the final session of Ibero-American summit in Santiago.
The king asked Mr Chavez to "shut up" after the Venezuelan leader repeatedly interrupted the Spanish Prime Minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.