Copei

The Independent Electoral Political Organization Committee (COPEI), also known by its slogan Social Christian Party COPEI, Social Christian Party or Green Party due to the color of its identifications, is a Venezuelan political party, founded on January 13, 1946, framed within the ideological trend as a party of democratic center and Christian humanism, being non-denominational. Heir to the National Action party and the National Student Union (UNE), its primary growth took place in the 1940s in the Andean states, Táchira, Mérida and Trujillo, with the support of the Catholic Church. From 1958 to 1998, COPEI maintained bipartisan political power over Venezuela with Acción Democrática, with the presidencies of Rafael Caldera (1969-1974) and Luis Herrera Campins (1979-1984).

In the parliamentary elections held in September 2010, COPEI obtained 580,458 votes, which represented 5.13% of the valid votes and made it the fifth most voted Venezuelan party, and at the same time made it the fourth party of the opposition coalition to the government of Hugo Chávez, MUD, by monopolizing 10.88% of the votes of the same.

In 2015 the party was intervened by order of the Supreme Court of Justice, due to internal conflicts requested by its then president, Roberto Enríquez, since then the party lost most of its membership. For the parliamentary elections of 2015, COPEI showed a good image; however, he was expelled from the MUD, like his candidates, due to conflicts with the ad hoc junta imposed by the TSJ.

After 10 years, in August 2019 the party was removed from court thanks to the steps taken by the national leadership appointed by the National Social Christian Assembly on March 27, 2019.

The party has been divided into two sectors since 2015, currently they are in dispute between the elected party led by Roberto Enríquez (President of the Copei Legítimo ODCA) who is running as a candidate in the primaries and the ad hoc board .

The Legitimate Copei nominates Roberto as its candidate for the primary elections that, if elected, would later be a presidential candidate in 2024, however the other sector nominated on March 25, 2023, during the National Federal Council, to Juan Carlos Alvarado who was unanimously elected among representatives of all regions of Venezuela, as presidential candidate for the 2024 elections,

Ideology

COPEI is a party inspired by Christian democracy and defender of four fundamental principles of its political doctrine, the social doctrine of the Catholic Church:

1. Defence of human dignity: for COPEI human beings is the main work of creation, so their dignity should not be violated. All government and state actions must respect the human being.
2. Subsidiarity: COPEI proposes that man is a limited being, this makes the human being need of the State and society to help him in his limitations.
3. Sociability: For COPEI, development as a whole is fundamental, that is, the development of the individual must be within society in parallel, so that the human being will not develop more than society or society more than it.
   The party argues that this principle goes against classical liberalism and socialism, given that with liberalism, human beings tend to develop more than society, creating an imbalance and inequality. In socialism, it is society that develops more than the individual, creating, according to COPEI, a dictatorship of majority. In Christian democracy, on the other hand, it argues that human beings and society must develop in parallel.
4. Search for the common good: for COPEI, the largest sum of collective well-being is the fair position of individual goods

History

Background

Its most direct antecedent is the Unión Nacional Estudiantil (UNE), a split of the Federation of Students of Venezuela founded on May 8, 1936 before the decision of the latter organization to ask the government to expel the Society of Jesus of the country as well as other religious orders and their demonstration against religious education. The UNE emerged as an organization with a conservative Social Christian orientation adverse to the Marxist influence of that time.

Later on, at the initiative of Rafael Caldera and other Venezuelan politicians who were members of the UNE, in October 1938 the Electoral Action party was registered in the Federal District as an instrument of the UNE to participate in elections. In 1942 they merged with the Movimiento de Acción Nacionalista (MAN) to become Acción Nacional.

In those years within the militancy there were two main trends: a wing led by Rafael Caldera that questioned post-Gomecista positivism (lopecismo and medinismo) and more tended to converge with forces from other tendencies; and a more conservative wing led by Pedro José Lara Peña, more akin to Lopezismo nationally and Falangism internationally, with a more markedly anti-communist stance. After the overthrow of Isaías Medina Angarita on October 18, 1945, the then UNE immediately expresses its support for the Revolutionary Government Junta. The latter appoints the Copeyan leader Rafael Caldera as Attorney General of the Republic eight days after the coup.

Party Foundation

Commemorative plaque at the place where COPEI was founded.

Founders of COPEI, Rafael Caldera of first, Lorenzo Fernández and Pedro del Corral at the end.

In order to participate in the elections called by the Revolutionary Government Junta to form a national constituent assembly, the Independent Electoral Political Organization Committee was founded on January 13, 1946, participating in the aforementioned elections in October of that year as an alternative to the varieties of socialism that Acción Democrática and the Communist Party of Venezuela represented at that time.

However, despite COPEI's initial sympathies towards the so-called October Revolution of 1945, Rafael Caldera in April 1946 from the city of San Cristóbal announced his opposition to the junta and finally resigned from his position in the attorney general's office.

However, its definitive consolidation as a political party properly arose in its III National Convention held in March 1948, in which the party was defined as Social Christian, keeping its acronym COPEI. Among its leaders at that time were Pedro del Corral (president for life), José Antonio Pérez Díaz the first secretary general, Rafael Caldera, Víctor Giménez Landínez, Hugo Pérez La Salvia, José Lara Peña and others.

After the fall of President Rómulo Gallegos and during the Marcos Pérez Jiménez regime, the party suffered repression, although it was never formally outlawed, unlike other political forces such as Acción Democrática, the Communist Party of Venezuela and Unión Republicana Democrática. At that time, COPEI took nonviolent resistance as its path, a position that was criticized by other factors in the opposition to Pérez Jiménez.

In 1957, the Copeyan leader Rafael Caldera was briefly imprisoned to prevent the possibility of his presidential candidacy in the elections scheduled for that year, but Caldera managed to go into exile. Later, after the fall of Pérez Jiménez, on October 31, In 1958 the party signed the so-called Pact of Puntofijo, in which the COPEI, Acción Democrática and Unión Republicana Democrática parties undertook to respect the Constitution and respect the electoral results, in addition to negotiating a common program and the formation of a government of national unity.

Democratic period

Then they participated in the 1958 elections in which the social democrat Rómulo Betancourt of the Acción Democrática party was the winner. In these elections, the candidate from Copey, Rafael Caldera, would come in third place. Around the 1960s, different currents would emerge within the party: some more focused on community society and others with more conservative ideas.

From left to right: Eduardo Fernández, Rafael Caldera and Luis Herrera Campíns at the National Ideological Congress of COPEI, on October 3, 1986.

Its founder and top leader for a long time, Rafael Caldera, was a presidential candidate five times for COPEI, being first elected for the period 1969-1974. In 1978, Luis Herrera Campíns from Copey was elected for the period 1979-1984, obtaining a parliamentary majority for the first time. On February 18, 1983, in the face of the country's economic crisis caused by the flight of foreign currency, the fall in oil exports and insolvency before international banks, the government devalued the currency and initiated exchange control during the events of the so-called Black Friday, unpopular measures in the face of the crisis lead the party to lose the 1983 elections.

In 1988, Eduardo Fernández presented himself as a candidate for the party, being defeated by Carlos Andrés Pérez, before the coup attempts against the latter, the party established a position of defense of the Venezuelan democratic system, with the exception of Rafael Caldera, until then its oldest leader, who withdrew from the party in 1993 to found Convergence in alliance with members of its historic rivals on the Venezuelan left.

The presence of Arístides Calvani and the subsequent emergence of figures such as Luis Herrera Campins, Lorenzo Fernández (presidential candidate for the party), Eduardo Fernández (who was president of the political organization), was of vital importance in the doctrinal and ideological formation of the party. Oswaldo Álvarez Paz (former governor of Zulia, party's presidential candidate in 1993 and founder of the Alianza Popular party, also a Christian Democrat after leaving Copei) and Henrique Salas Römer (who also left the party, former governor of Carabobo state and presidential candidate in 1998 for the Proyecto Venezuela party, founded by himself).

Participation of Democratic Action and COPEI, from 1947 to 2012.

In the 1998 elections, Copei gave his support to Irene Sáez, but a week before the elections, he withdrew his support and gave it to Salas-Römer himself, apparently the only one capable of disputing Hugo Chávez for head of state. who was finally chosen. In his development, Copei has gone from Catholic-conservative beginnings to a long stage of Social Christian inspiration, marked by a tendency towards the political center and Keynesian economics, very close to his rival, the social democrat Acción Democrática. In recent years, with the arrival to the leadership of the Secretary General, Luis Ignacio Planas, and the president of the party, Orlando Contreras Pulido, Copei has reformulated its policy towards the Christian Democrat center-right and presents a program based on the social and ecological market economy, inspired by the programs of the conservative European parties Popular Party (PP) of Spain and the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU), and of Latin America such as the Chilean Christian Democratic Party or the Mexican National Action Party (PAN).

Logo used from 1945 to 2006.

Opposition to Hugo Chávez

Copei Militants participating in a march in favor of Edwin Pirela's campaign to Lagunillas, Zulia.

It should be noted that the family of former President Hugo Chávez was of Copeyan tradition, his father being Hugo de los Reyes Chávez, leader and co-founder of Copei Barinas. Since 1999 the organization has been part of the opposition to his government and his successor Nicolás Maduro.

It has gone from being the second party of the second half of the XX century, after Acción Democrática (AD), to having a more modest profile, being greatly diminished, due to splits within Copei itself, such as the aforementioned Venezuela Project, Convergence or Popular Movement, and above all the loss of its leader, Caldera, since then it has had outstanding militancy only in the Táchira states, Miranda and Falcon.

An important part of Copei's traditional conservative sympathizers are currently in the aforementioned Popular Movement and Project Venezuela; On the other hand, a group of young sympathizers formed what is known today as Primero Justicia and Voluntad Popular. In the presidential elections of the year 2000, it did not present a candidate, but it did present the legislative ones obtaining very low results. In the legislative elections of December 2005, Copei decided not to participate together with other opposition parties, arguing electoral fraud, therefore of having their five deputies to the National Assembly obtained in the 2000 elections went to the legislature that began in 2006 to have none.

In that same year, he initially presented Sergio Omar Calderón (who was governor of the state of Táchira) as a pre-candidate for the December 3 presidential elections, but he declined in favor of Manuel Rosales, a candidate supported by more than 40 opposition parties and which lost to Hugo Chávez, Copei's card in particular obtained just over 2% of the vote, narrowly avoiding having to re-register with the National Electoral Council. In 2007 the party held a congress (after a decade without holding this type of event) to define the new statutes of the organization. They also approved a new name: "Copei-Popular Party" and a new slogan: Yes, there is a future. In November 2007, it presented itself as one of the parties to promote the "No" option to reject the 2007 Constitutional Reform Project in Venezuela.

In the 2008 regional elections, Copei was one of the opposition parties that won the most elected positions, with 12 mayoralties, including two state capitals (San Carlos and Mérida), one governorate (Táchira) and several deputies from regional legislative councils. It is part of the opposition coalition called "National Unity".

Logo used from 2006 to 2015.

National Directive

The National Directorate of the party is made up of: Miguel Salazar, National President; Jesús Jiménez Vilchez, Second National Vice President; Juan Carlos Alvarado, National Secretary General; Jonathan Patti, Deputy Secretary General and the members: Juan Fersaca, Félix Alexander Paredes, Silvia Melina Vásquez and Antonio Sotillo Luna.

Divisions

Like the rest of the Venezuelan parties, Copei has suffered numerous splits throughout its history, the most important being led by Rafael Caldera, who was the founder of Copei himself, for the 1993 Venezuelan presidential elections it did not have party support and decided to form an alliance called Convergence or "El chiripero" made up of militants from the "calderista" of the Christian social party Copei managing to win the presidency of the republic. That year, the party had Oswaldo Álvarez Paz as its presidential candidate, who at that time was Governor of Zulia State.

Electoral card since 2015

Henrique Salas Römer, for the 1998 elections created Proyecto Venezuela as a national party, it has a presence throughout Venezuela, but particularly in the State of Carabobo where he won the regional elections of 1998 and 2000 with Henrique Salas Feo as candidate. By the year 2000 Proyecto Venezuela was the fifth largest party in Venezuela (behind MVR, AD, MAS and Copei), the same as in 2004 (behind MVR, AD, Podemos and Copei).

In the year 2000, a youth sector of Copei led by Henrique Capriles Radonski —at that time mayor of the Baruta municipality— together with a group of young people founded the political party Primero Justicia and left his original party Copei, since then he was part of of the National Directorate of the party, he was Deputy National Coordinator, a position he held until 2008, when by party statutes when he held public office he had to separate from the leadership of the Primero Justicia party he has led the candidacies of Henrique Capriles Radonski for the 2012 presidential elections and 2013. In 2018, support for Henri Falcón was announced for the presidential elections of that year, obtaining 46.58% of the votes for Falcón, even surpassing Avanzada Progresista, which obtained 30.54% of the votes..

Restructuring

Opposive march to Hugo Chávez with the dominance of Copeyanos.

Since mid-2006, Copei has undergone a restructuring of its board of directors. The representative color was changed from dark green to light green, the logo was modernized, the name "popular party" was added, a new slogan was created: Yes it is possible, and its statutes were reformed, which give an important participation to the youth within the leadership of the party and the candidacies for the different elective positions.

Given the intervention of the party by the Supreme Court of Justice, the COPEI candidates for the 2016-2021 National Assembly were removed from the opposition coalition based on the need to resolve the internal problems of the party.

This political organization has the most entrenched youth structure in partisan history; The JDC (Christian Democratic Youth) heads this structure, preceding in hierarchy, student organizations such as COPEI Estudiantil, installed extraordinarily in Santa Bárbara Del Zulia on October 17, 2014. Due to its new Ad hoc directive established by the TSJ, the Democratic Unity Table decided to expel the party from the opposition coalition in 2015.

After the division of COPEI accentuated in 2015 with the ad hoc junta of pro-government tendency, the leaders of COPEI headed by Roberto Enríquez created a faction (de jure Sector) called "COPEI−ODCA", headed by the elected leaders of the party who sympathizes with the MUD.

Election results

Presidential Elections

Legend: In coalition with other parties

Parliamentary elections

Year	# Of vows	% of votes	Deputies	+/-	Senators	+/-
1946	141.418	10.1 per cent	19/160
1947	200.695	17.0%	16/110	3	4/46
1952	300,309	17.39 per cent	17/106	1
1958	392,305	15.20%	18/132	1	6/51	2
1963	595.697	20.82%	39/179	21	8/47	2
1968	883.814	24,0%	59/212	20	16/52	8
1973	1,330,514	30.2%	64/200	5	13/47	3
1978	2,103,004	39.8 per cent	84/199	20	21/44	8
1983	1,887,226	28.7 per cent	60/200	14	14/44	7
1988	2,247,236	31.1 per cent	67/201	7	20/46	6
1993	1,065,512	22.62%	53/203	14	14/50	6
1998	518.976	12.1 per cent	26/207	27	6/54	8
2000	227,349	5.10%	6/165	21
2005	Don't participate
2010	723.579	4.4%	10/165	10
2015	No data		2/167	8
2020	175.771	2.82%	3/277	1

Regional elections

Year	# Of vows	% of votes	Government obtained	+/-
1989	1,271,314	31.95%	7/20
1992	No data		12/22	5
1995	956,737	21.26%	3/22	9
1998	747.761	15.07%	4/23	1
2000	283,185	7.24%	1/23	3
2004			0/22	1
2008	471,163	4.26%	1/22	1
2010	No data		0/2
2012	235,231	2.68%	0/23	1
2017	360.697	3.26%	0/23
2021			0/23

Municipal elections

Year	Municipalities obtained	+/-
1989	101/269
2000	49/335
2004	18/332	31
2008	11/326	7
2010	0/11
2013	13/337	2
2017	14/335	1
2021	8/335	6

Current authorities

Main National Deputies

National Substitute Deputies

Regional Deputies

Mayors

Presidents of Venezuela

Owner		Chosen in	Mandate
	Rafael Caldera	1968 Presidential Elections	11 March 1969	First government of Rafael Caldera	12 March 1974
	Luis Herrera Campíns	Presidential elections of 1978	12 March 1979	Government of Luis Herrera Campíns	2 February 1984

Institutes

• Popular Institute of Training (IPF)
• Centro Internacional de Formación Arístides Calvani (IFEDEC)