Hugo Chavez was a piece of bad news. AFAIK he was elected legally by the standards of Venezuela by a tactic of extreme class warfare. He went from democracy to tyranny by stages and he was a nutjob to boot. I would not blame the 'ism' of Socialism for this because the overall drivers were greed and incompetence.

Another case of the "I, Claudius" dictum that mankind should not lose its sense of smell.