Venezuelan Presidents and Political History: 19th and 20th Centuries
Presidents of Venezuela
José Antonio Páez
Born: March 13, 1790, Portuguesa State Died: May 6, 1873, New York, USA.
He was president of Venezuela on three occasions: 1830-1835, 1839-1843, and 1861-1863.
- First Term: Governed with relative peace, achieving a slight recovery in the war-torn economy.
- Second Term: Dealt with matters of defense and transport. The effects of the international crisis of 1838 began to be felt.
- Third Term: Nominally governed from Caracas. In mid-June 1863, he left Venezuela for the third and final time, taking up residence again in New York after multiple problems with the anti-federalists led by Juan Crisóstomo Falcón.
Carlos Soublette
Born: December 15, 1789, La Guaira Died: February 11, 1870, Caracas.
He was president of Venezuela twice: 1837-1839 and 1843-1847.
- First Period: During this calm and fruitful period, the repatriation of the remains of the Liberator took place. He held the post until February 1, 1839.
- Second Period: Assumed the presidency in 1843 after winning elections. He gave up this position in January 1847.
José Tadeo Monagas
Born: October 28, 1874 Died: November 18, 1868.
He was president twice: 1847-1851 and 1855-1858.
- First Period: Characterized by breaking with conservative groups and applying measures considered by his opponents as arbitrary. This first term (1847-1851) was marked by the events of January 24, 1848, culminating in the assault on Congress and the imposition of personal power.
- Second Period: After his re-election, widespread discontent generated insurrectionary outbreaks. Faced with an uprising in Valencia promoted by General Julián Castro (“the March Revolution”), Monagas resigned as president on March 15, 1858, took refuge in the legation of France in Caracas, and went into exile a few weeks later.
Manuel Felipe de Tovar
He was president between 1859-1861, becoming the first president elected by the Venezuelan people. Until then, Congress designated the president. The inauguration took place on April 12, 1860, in the Temple of San Francisco in Caracas.
The Civil War continued in Venezuela. General José Antonio Páez, who was in New York, returned to petition the government to take charge of the Army. He only lasted for 8 days in office, as the army was ruined in the civil war.
Pressed by circumstances, President Tovar resigned the Presidency of the Republic on May 20, 1861, following the footsteps of another president, José María Vargas, who ruled in similar circumstances.
Carlos Andrés Pérez
Born: October 27, 1922
He was president of the Republic twice: 1974-1979 and 1989-1993.
- First Term: In his first year in office, he developed two initiatives in the field of culture: the Ayacucho Library and the Grand Marshal of Ayacucho Scholarship Program, to train thousands of Venezuelan students in prestigious universities around the world. In 1975, the iron industry was nationalized, and the following year, the oil industry was nationalized, creating the company Petróleos de Venezuela with the purpose of providing the state a tool for managing oil resources.
- Second Term: The image of Pérez as president of the economic miracle helped give him the presidency again. However, the economic situation had been deteriorating steadily, with oil prices going down. The currency was sharply devalued, inflation was high, and foreign debt was a burden to the republic.
Rafael Caldera
Born: January 26, 1916, Yaracuy Died: December 24, 2009, Caracas.
He was president of Venezuela twice in the twentieth century: 1969-1974 and 1994-1998.
- First Period: His government was harmed by U.S. inflation that characterized the first presidency of Richard Nixon, combined with the low prices of oil, which caused economic growth in Venezuela during this period to be flat. Among his notable achievements is the pacification of the country. Despite his conservative mood, his pragmatism led him to a truce with the armed left, which managed to be integrated into political life. In this aspect, he legalized the Communist Party of Venezuela.
- Second Period: In the first year of his second term, he had to manage a deep financial crisis that began with the intervention of Banco Latino, which had broken in the interim government of his predecessor, Ramón José Velásquez. After the dismissal of Pérez, it continued with the collapse and involvement of a dozen banks and led to capital flight by way of financial aid granted by the State to the bench, hitting thousands of savers and causing a serious imbalance in the economy of Venezuela.
War
War: Fighting, conflict, combat, mainly armed, relating to the breakdown of peace between powers or countries, pursuing a determined ideal.
Civil War
Civil War: Any military confrontation whose participants are mostly regular military forces but are formed or organized by people, usually civilians. Their common feature is that the armed conflict takes place within a country, facing each other people from the same place (town, village, or community) to defend, generally, two different ideologies and interests.
The Federal War (1859-1863)
Also known as the Long War and the Five Years War, it was the military confrontation between conservative and liberal trends in 19th-century Venezuela. It is considered the most costly military confrontation in Venezuela after independence. The conservative oligarchy that emerged from the War of Independence opposed changing the established social order from the colony, unchanged after the War of Independence of Venezuela, including, among other things, the electoral system. On the other hand, liberals proclaimed the ideals of freedom and equality.
The Blue Revolution
It was a revolutionary process that was part of many movements that developed in the course of the political history of 19th-century Venezuela. Through this armed movement, various political and regional forces overthrew President Juan Crisóstomo Falcón and his interim successor, Manuel Ezequiel Bruzual. In short, with measures implemented under the name Blue Revolution, the political conflict in 1868 between major liberal cores and the government of Juan Crisóstomo Falcón was defined in its military phase.
The Restorative Revolution
Cipriano Castro, in arms against the government of Ignacio Andrade, crossed the Táchira River on May 23, 1899, at the beginning of a victorious march towards Caracas. It was the Liberal Restorative Revolution or the invasion of the sixties. Among those accompanying Castro was his godfather, Juan Vicente Gómez. Castro claimed that Andrade violated the Constitution and sought to restore it. The year 1900 marks Castro’s rupture with the capitalist bankers. Given the latter’s refusal to sign a loan, the government threatened to open the safes by force. Moreover, a decree ordered the issuance of two and a half million Bolivars in silver and seven hundred and fifty thousand Bolivars in nickel. Such a decree introduced financial panic, and bankers objected to Castro’s policy, leading to their imprisonment. He soon achieved peace with the contestants, but soon Matos, one of the jailed bankers, would emerge as the leader of the so-called Liberating Revolution.
Political Party
A political party is responsible for recruiting candidates for government positions and legislative seats. For that, they mobilize electoral support. They also organize legislative work, articulate, and add new interests and preferences of citizens. They are key to building political support for certain programs, socioeconomic interests, and values. They add the preferences of citizens and governments and establish a political agreement on the legislative front.
Political Parties (Large and Medium-Large)
- United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV)
- Un Nuevo Tiempo (UNT)
- Democratic Action (AD)
- Primero Justicia (PJ)
- Copei
- Project Venezuela (PV)
- Patria Para Todos (PPT)
- For Social Democracy (PODEMOS)
- Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV)
Ideology
Competing ideologies: Ronald Reagan giving a speech flanked by banners in front of the Berlin Wall, 1987. The Brandenburg Gate, in turn, recalls the use of art to justify the construction of the state, as in this case, Prussia-Germany.
An ideology is a set of ideas about the existing system (economic, social, political…), seeking its conservation (conservative ideologies), its transformation (which may be radical, sudden, or progressive and revolutionary—peaceful—reformist ideologies), or the restoration of a previously existing system (reactionary ideologies).
Caudillismo
Caudillismo is a social and political phenomenon that emerged during the 19th century in Latin America. It is the appearance in each country of charismatic leaders whose way of gaining power and reaching the government was based on informal mechanisms and broad recognition of leadership by the crowds. They placed in the “leader” an expression of the interests of all and the ability to solve common problems. Caudillismo was key to the dictatorships and struggles of 19th-century political parties.