Cancer-stricken Venezuelan leader Chavez dies

Vice President Nicolas Maduro, surrounded by other government officials, announced the death in a national television broadcast.

He said Mr Chavez, left, died at 4.25pm local time.

During more than 14 years in office, Mr Chavez routinely challenged the status quo at home and internationally.

He polarised Venezuelans with his confrontational and domineering style, yet was also a masterful communicator and strategist who tapped into the country’s nationalism to win broad support, particularly among the poor.

Mr Chavez repeatedly proved himself a political survivor. As an army paratroop commander, he led a failed coup in 1992, then was pardoned and elected president in 1998. He survived a coup against his own presidency in 2002 and won re-election two more times.

“El Comandante” – as Mr Chavez was known – electrified crowds with his booming voice. Before his struggle with cancer, he appeared on television almost daily, talking for hours at a time and often breaking into song of philosophical discourse.

Mr Chavez underwent surgery in Cuba in June 2011 to remove what he said was a baseball-size tumour from his pelvic region and the cancer returned repeatedly.

He kept secret key details of his illness, including the type of cancer and the precise location of the tumours.