Venezuela’s government is honouring the late Hugo Chavez with a public holiday of “loyalty and love to the supreme commander” of the South American nation’s socialist revolution. President Nicolas Maduro’s decree announcing December 8 as a public holiday in honour of the leader is generating controversy because this year’s commemoration is the same day as municipal elections. The vote is widely seen as a referendum on Mr. Maduro’s seven-month rule. The holiday commemorates Chavez’s final public appearance, when the cancer-stricken leader anointed Mr. Maduro as his successor. Three months later Chavez died at the age of 58. The decree was published on Tuesday.
