After Chávez, Searching for Venezuela’s Identity

More than two years after the death of Hugo Chávez—the fiercely loved and despised Venezuelan President, the populist with a booming voice—the country he left behind remains in disarray. Demonstrations against his successor, Nicolás Maduro, have been fueled by anger and frustration over high inflation, violent crime and shortages of basic goods. That has led the Venezuelan people to question what El Comandante left for them. Alejandro Cegarra, a 25-year-old photographer who grew up in a relatively privileged middle-class family, in what he called “a good area” of Caracas, the capital city of 2.9 million, is among them. In the wake of Chávez’s death, he began looking at the political, social and economic factors that pushed his country to its current point. More…