Buying time to secure their own political future, Venezuelan officials carefully stage-managed Chávez’s illness and eventual death, even suggesting near the end, while he was undergoing complex and agonizing cancer treatments, that he was still “walking and exercising.” The information vacuum was reminiscent of the secrecy surrounding the deaths of Stalin and Mao, and the practice in the Ottoman empire of keeping the sultan’s death a secret for weeks until the succession was settled.
尚不清楚委内瑞拉的查韦斯在实际死亡了多久之后才被正式宣布死讯。委内瑞拉官员需要时间来确保自身的政治未来，他们精心地安排着查韦斯的病情和最终的死亡，即使在查韦斯弥留之际、接受复杂而痛苦的癌症治疗时，他们仍宣称他仍在“散步和运动”。其信息真空让人想起了斯大林和毛泽东逝世前后的故作神秘，以及土耳其帝国将苏丹死讯保密数周、直到继任者尘埃落定方才公布的做法。