CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — The towering, white mausoleum in downtown Caracas is for many Venezuelans a lot like Hugo Chavez, only in architectural terms: disproportionately larger-than-life, flamboyant and self-important.
And no, the grand tomb was not built for Venezuela’s socialist president, who has grappled with his own mortality in his recent battle with cancer and is running for re-election.
It will cradle the remains of South American independence leader Simon Bolivar, who Chavez daily, rapturously and exhaustively exalts as the spiritual father of his own self-styled revolution.
The 160-foot (50-meter) mausoleum is to be inaugurated in the coming days, though it is not quite finished.