Adina Bastidas

Adina Mercedes Bastidas Castillo (Caracas, Venezuela, June 11, 1943), ^{[citation required]} is a Venezuelan politician. She was vice president of Venezuela between 2000 and 2002.

Youth

Since his youth he was a member of the Communist Party of Venezuela, integrating a Tactical Combat Unit (UTC) of the guerrilla group Armed Forces of National Liberation that unleashed the armed struggle in Venezuela between 1960 and 1969.

On February 4, 1964, she was arrested carrying a gun along with Mario Antonio García, for an armed robbery of Lourdes Blanco de Cañas, widow of a member of the National Guard who died in service, who had just received a pension. of widowhood. The neighbors captured them, disarmed them and handed them over to the Judicial Technical Police, seizing two weapons. She was tried in Caracas and sent on February 11, 1964 to the Los Teques Women's Prison. After being released she joins the Party of the Venezuelan Revolution (PRV) at the Central University of Venezuela where she is in charge of recruiting cadres and militants for the urban units. After the pacification of the country through the reintegration of communist groups into the political system, in the 1990s she was a founding activist of the Fifth Republic Movement.

Vice President of the Republic

The president of Venezuela Hugo Chávez appointed her Executive Vice President of the Republic on December 24, 2000 until January 13, 2002, a government position created by the new 1999 constitution promoted by Chávez through a popular referendum, becoming the first woman in Venezuela to officially obtain the second government position.

Inter-American Development Bank

From 2006 to 2014 she was Executive Director of the Panama and Venezuela Chair at the Inter-American Development Bank, in Washington, D.C., United States of America, where she was also dean of said body.

Considered from the most left wing of the Chávez government, Bastidas has been highly criticized by Venezuelan businessmen. She was replaced by Diosdado Cabello.