Profile: Hugo Chavez

Hugo Chavez says he is ready for the next stage of his Bolivarian revolution

Hugo Chavez came to power in 1999, and has inspired both adulation and loathing at home and abroad ever since.

Venezuelans are split on their president: a majority say he speaks for the poor, while others say he has become increasingly autocratic.

The former army paratrooper first came to prominence as a leader of a failed coup in 1992.

His election victory six years later provoked a seismic shift in Venezuelan politics, toppling the traditional political elite.

His time in office has proved equally dramatic. He was ousted for a couple of days in a short-lived coup in 2002. He survived and emerged strengthened two years later in a referendum on his leadership. He then went on to victory in the 2006 presidential election.

HUGO CHAVEZ Born 28 July 1954 in Sabaneta, Barinas state, the son of schoolteachers Graduated from Military Academy in 1975 Has four children Keen baseball player

Now, after success in the latest referendum on 15 February 2009, he is eyeing staying in office beyond the end of his current term in 2012.

The referendum win means he can run for office an unlimited number of times. Mr Chavez has said he needs another 10 years for what he calls Venezuela's socialist revolution to take root.

It was the second time he had tried to change the constitution, having narrowly failed the first time in 2007.

At the time, 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

In February 1992, Mr Chavez led a doomed attempt to overthrow the government of President Carlos Andres Perez amid growing anger at economic austerity measures.

Mr Chavez says he has drawn much inspiration from Cuba's Fidel Castro

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 re-launched 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 the 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.

The president's opponents say he has concentrated power in his hands

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 the Bush administration of "fighting terror with terror" during the war in Afghanistan after 11 September 2001.

The situation hardly improved when Mr Chavez accused the US of being behind the failed coup to oust him in 2002.

CHAVEZ DECADE: KEY DATES Feb 1999: Takes office after winning 1998 election July: Re-elected under new constitution for a six-year term April 2002: Abortive coup. Chavez returns to power after two days August 2004: Wins recall referendum on whether he should serve out rest of his term Dec 2006: Wins another six-year term with 63% Dec 2007: Loses constitutional referendum which included proposal to allow the president to run indefinitely for office Feb 2009: Wins referendum that lifts term limits on elected officials

Venezuela'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.

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.

It remains to be seen how US-Venezuelan ties develop. Mr Chavez congratulated Barack Obama on his election victory and has indicated he is ready to "start a process of rapprochement" with the US.