Francisco Arias Cardenas

Francisco Javier Arias Cárdenas (San Juan de Colón, Táchira state, Venezuela; November 20, 1950) is a soldier of the Bolivarian Army, politician, and Venezuelan diplomat. Since 2019 he has held the position of ambassador of Venezuela in Mexico. He was elected governor of Zulia on three occasions (1995, 1998 and 2012), candidate for the presidency of the Republic (2000, coming in second place to Hugo Chávez) deputy to the National Assembly (2010-2012) and Venezuelan ambassador to the UN (2006-2008).

He was also a member of the Promoting Commission commissioned by President Hugo Chávez to form the United Socialist Party of Venezuela. From 2017 to 2019 he served as acting president of Corpozulia.

Military career

He was born in the Tachira city of San Juan de Colón, he was an altar boy in his childhood and also a minor seminarian in his youth, then he studied at the Military Academy of Venezuela, where he obtained a degree in Military Sciences and Arts, being by order of merit number 14 (of a total of 127) of the "General in Chief José Ignacio Pulido" in 1974. He completed his studies at the University of Los Andes in Mérida (Venezuela), to obtain a master's degree in Political Science and at the Javeriana University of Bogotá (Colombia) in Social and Political History.

Member of the Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement - 200 (MBR 200) he supported the then lieutenant colonel Hugo Chávez in the coup d'état of February 4, 1992 against the second government of Carlos Andrés Pérez, he led the Battalion of Maracaibo, and managed to reduce and arrest the governor of that entity Oswaldo Álvarez Paz, however the rebellion failed, Arias Cárdenas was imprisoned along with his companions in the riot. He was released in 1994, after receiving a dismissal from President Rafael Caldera.

Political career

In 1994 he was appointed by the then President of the Republic, Rafael Caldera, as president of the Maternal and Child Nutrition Program (PAMI). In 1995 he ran as a candidate for the governorship of the state of Zulia for La Causa R, the partial results gave the candidate of the Democratic Action party (AD) as the winner, this unleashed a series of riots by the population who were protesting the result in On the same day of the elections, due to popular pressure, the votes were recounted, which finally revealed Arias Cárdenas as the winner for the governorship of one of the most important states in the country. He is thus the first outside the traditional parties in this position.

In the polarized elections of December 1998, he supported Chávez for the presidency of the republic, and he ran for re-election for the governorship of the state of Zulia with the support of Chavista parties such as the Fifth Republic Movement, the Previous allied party La Causa R, and even the traditional Christian social party Copei, both won in a landslide, defeating in the case of Arias Cárdenas the Democratic Action candidate, Manuel Rosales. However, in 2000 Arias Cárdenas changed his mind and he became a critic of Chávez, going over to the opposition, deciding to compete against Chávez himself for the head of state in the early mega-elections of that year, being supported by opposition parties such as La Causa Radical, Bandera Roja, MIN. In these elections, all the elective positions in the country had to be elected simultaneously, these being, along with Claudio Fermín of the Encuentro Nacional party, the only ones nominated for the highest position in the country, in the end Arias Cárdenas lost, coming in second place and collecting more than a third of the votes, continuing to be active in politics, founding a new organization called Unión, adverse to the Chavista government, to the point of denouncing Hugo Chávez and his entourage as instigators and mainly responsible for the massacres that occurred in Caracas in April 2002. Although Arias Cárdenas was a fierce critic of the government in his statements, later he opened dialogue with Chavismo, thus proposing to be vice president of the government, although he was rejected by Chávez. In the 2004 regional elections he launched his candidacy for the governorship of the state of Zulia, but came in third place, being defeated by his eternal rival in the Zulia governorship Manuel Rosales (now nominated by Un Nuevo Tiempo), and the Chavista candidate Alberto Gutiérrez.

In 2005, he changed his position again and once again showed his support for the government and "acknowledges" that "made mistakes". In 2006, after his reconciliation with Chavismo, he was chosen by President Chávez to the position of Ambassador of Venezuela to the United Nations (UN). In March 2007 he supported the formation of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, whose purpose is to merge pro-government parties including Unión, later he assumed the position of vice minister of foreign affairs for Latin America and the Caribbean. Until December 28, he was a Deputy to the National Assembly, elected by the PSUV representing the state of Zulia after the elections of September 26, 2010. In the 2012 regional elections, Arias Cárdenas was elected governor of the state of Zulia with 52.99% of the vote. the votes.

After the regional elections in the State of Zulia on October 15, 2017, he came second in the race, behind the opposition candidate and deputy Juan Pablo Guanipa. Then on October 23 of the same year, he was appointed president in charge of the Zulia Development Corporation by President Nicolás Maduro. On April 6, 2019, Maduro appointed him as Venezuela's ambassador to Mexico.

Corruption accusations

After his departure from the Zulia government, allegations of corruption arose that linked Arias Cárdenas to the misappropriation of resources during his time in office, ranging from diversion of funds from the Oncological Hospital, which was never built and other acts denounced by Governor Omar Prieto, such as the failure to deliver 30 buses. He would also be linked to the famous Odebrecht corruption list and would be the ringleader of a fuel trafficking route reported by journalist Javier Núñez Leal in media in the US