Ramtin Arablouei and Randa Abdel-Fattah

Still, Maduro was no Chavez.

And the idea of anyone other than Chavez leading the country seemed almost beyond comprehension for a lot of Venezuelans.

Among his hardcore supporters and also amongst the hardcore opposition, they just couldn't accept him as that.

He could die.

He was such a huge figure in Venezuela.

He was a colossus.

He sucked up all the oxygen and done so for my own two decades.

It was this sense of, no.

What are you talking about?

No.

You're going to come back.

It's going to be okay.

How could we imagine a future Chavismo without Chavez at the helm?

The Venezuela Chavez left behind was about to enter a really dark time.

And his economic policies of the previous decade or so were to blame.

Mismanagement opened up the door to a huge amount of corruption and also hurt the private sector, mainly, you know, the oil sector.

He destroyed institutions, but did not do a good job at recreating institutions.

And this is what people often say about revolutionaries.

You have a disruptive leader coming in.

They can destroy things in the name of change.