Ramtin Arablouei and Randa Abdel-Fattah

And Bolívar became the first president of Gran Colombia.

Just seven years after Chávez attempted to overthrow the president of Venezuela, he was being sworn in himself.

I mean, this is the same guy who tried to undermine democracy not that long ago by staging a coup.

Well, his evolution from coup stager to candidate really began while he was in jail.

During that time, Venezuela was facing some serious problems.

The party system that had been held up as solid and strong had now collapsed.

Then after that, you know, you had a tremendous banking crisis.

Several banks failed when that basically wiped out savings that people had had.

So it was really a difficult decade for them.

Nothing like what we're seeing today, for sure.

But at the time, it was significant enough to create the sense that Venezuela can continue in the way that it's going.

And so not that Chavez had been prophetic.

But Chavez seemed to have predicted this economic and political turmoil in that two-minute speech he gave after the coup.

And many Venezuelans remembered it.

which allowed Chavez's aura to grow even while he was in jail.

So much so that this new president that was elected in 1993, one of his first acts was to pardon Chavez.

So Chavez was freed after two years in jail.

But once out of jail, Chavez didn't embrace the spotlight right away.

He, you know, tactically kind of retreated from the public eye.

Chavez knew that a lot of Venezuelans were still skeptical of his motives, even if they liked his ideas.