After Hugo Chavez, what's next for Venezuela (and the world)?

The populist Venezuelan firebrand loomed large over his country and the rest of Latin America. Can anyone fill his enormous shoes?

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias died at age 58 on Tuesday after a long battle with cancer, leaving behind a complicated legacy that includes improving the lives of the poor, nationalizing private industry and enterprise, autocratically amassing power, and deeply polarizing his country and the wider region. After 14 years dominating Venezuelan politics and casting his shadow over the rest of the world, Chavez's death also creates a gaping void. Venezuelans, and many people outside of Chavez's self-styled Bolivarian Republic, are wondering: What happens now?

The easy part is the nuts and bolts of transitioning to a new leader: Foreign Minister Elias Jaua said Tuesday that elections for a new president will be scheduled within 30 days, and that Venezuela will continue to be run by Vice President Nicolas Maduro until a new president — quite probably Maduro himself — is sworn in. Before his final surgery, Chavez named the former bus driver as his hand-picked successor, though the constitution appears to designate the speaker of the National Assembly as interim leader. Maduro is expected to face opposition leader Henrique Capriles Radonski in the election. Venezuela is officially in a seven-day period of mourning, and Chavez will be buried after an elaborate state funeral on Friday.

Pretty much everything else is speculation, informed or otherwise. Chavez's largesse with his own population and his regional allies, combined with falling oil prices, mismanagement of resources, and a lack of investment in Venezuela's economy, has left his country an economic basket case. Inflation is rampant, and the murder rate is the second highest in the world, after Honduras. But Chavez largely re-created the government in his own image, and his popularity, especially with Venezuela's poor, will probably boost Maduro into office. Still, that's not a sure bet.

More at: http://news.yahoo.com/hugo-chavez-whats-next-venezuela-world-064500284.html