Hugo Chavez, the socialist president of Venezuela, died Tuesday after losing a battle with cancer. Chavez was first elected in 1998 and has been in power for 14 years.
The body of Chavez is to be preserved and put on display in the military museum located in Caracas.
He was an advocate of ending corruption in government and used revenue from selling oil to fund his socialist packages.
Chavez re-wrote the constitution for Venezuela in 2000, adding a re-election option for leaders. He was then thrown out of office in April 2002, but was brought back into power within two days by the people of Venezuela.
A large state funeral was held Friday, which included performances from the National Youth Choir and National Youth Orchestra of Venezuela.
Thousands of citizens attended the funeral as well as many world leaders. However, U.S. President Barack Obama was not in attendance.
The U.S. and Venezuela have had tension in the past few years after Chavez called former President George Bush the devil during his 2006 United Nations address.
Chavez had won the last election in October 2012 with 54 percent of the votes, whereas his opposing candidate Herique Capriles received 44 percent, the BBC reported.
The vice president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, will stand in as president until the next election, which has been set for April 13.
Maduro will be running for election in April and the opposing party has yet to select a candidate.
“Why is this important to the world?” BBC’s David Cuen said about the upcoming election, “Because Venezuela poses the largest proven oil reserves on the planet and has economic ties with some of the world’s biggest economies such as Russia and China.”
