Rafael Caldera
Rafael Antonio Caldera Rodríguez (San Felipe, January 24, 1916-Caracas, December 24, 2009) was a Venezuelan jurist, educator, academic, statesman, and politician. Leader and ideologue of Christian Democracy, belonging to the "second great generation" of this current worldwide. Main promoter and signatory of the Puntofijo Pact that began the democratic experience in 1958. He was President of the Republic in 1969-1974 and 1994-1999, he has been the second civilian who has governed Venezuela for the longest time, being surpassed only by Nicolás Maduro, current president.
Editor of the Labor Law (1936) and its reform in 1989; of the 1961 Constitution and its reform project in 1992, he was also President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (1979-1982). Honorary Professor and Doctor Honoris Causa from more than forty universities around the world, his books include Andrés Bello (1935), Labor Law (1939), Molds for the Forge (1962), Specificity of Christian Democracy (1972), Reflections of La Rábida (1976) and The assignees, of Carabobo to Puntofijo (1999). A practicing Catholic, he married Alicia Pietri Montemayor (from 1941 until his death), from whose union six children were born: Mireya, Rafael Tomás, Juan José, Alicia Helena, Cecilia and Andrés.
Biography
Childhood and youth
Rafael Caldera was born on January 24, 1916 in San Felipe, Yaracuy. He was the second son of Rafael Caldera Izaguirre, a lawyer, and Rosa Sofía Rodríguez Rivero, natives of that city. When his mother died on May 2, 1918, he was raised by his maternal aunt María Eva, married to Tomás Liscano Giménez, who became an academic, parliamentarian, and magistrate. His sisters, Rosa Elena and Lola, were taken in by another maternal uncle, Plácido Rodríguez.
Caldera studied primary school between San Felipe at the Colegio Montesinos and Padre Delgado and Caracas at the Colegio San Ignacio de Loyola, to finish his studies in the latter. high school. Years later he will tell as an anecdote that his first speech was delivered at the age of nine in the Plaza Bolívar in San Felipe. Educated by the Jesuits, among whom Father Manuel Aguirre Elorriaga, S.J., founder of the Gumilla Center and the SIC Magazine stands out., becomes the general secretary of the Venezuelan Catholic Youth.
In 1933, together with Jesús Pérez Machado and Alfonso Vidal, he attended the Congress of Catholic University Students in Rome, which would influence his future participation in politics and in which he met figures such as Eduardo Frei Montalva and other founders of the Christian Democratic movements in their respective countries.
Academic Life
Graduated from high school at the age of fifteen with outstanding grades, he must, however, wait for the following year to begin his Law studies at the Central University of Venezuela, which at that time began every two years. There he meets Caracciolo Parra León, his professor in General Principles of Law, who directs him to study the figure of Andrés Bello and to write a biography about the wise man at the age of nineteen, which is awarded an award by the Venezuelan Academy of Language in 1935..
In this regard, Chilean professor Iván Jaksic, in his biography on Andrés Bello, affirms that Caldera's book "still maintains its validity and freshness, and deserves its position as the most important monograph on Bello of the 20th century."
At the age of twenty, he was appointed deputy director of the recently created National Labor Office and actively participated in the drafting of the Labor Law, which would be in force for more than fifty years (1936-1990). In 1937 he is designated as the first correspondent of the International Labor Office (ILO) in Venezuela.
He graduated as a lawyer and a doctor in Political Science with the highest marks. He presented his book Labor Law (1939) as his thesis.
In 1943, he became a professor of Legal Sociology at the Central University of Venezuela, to later do so as a professor of Labor Law and, in both subjects, also at the Andrés Bello Catholic University (UCAB), until 1968, when he was elected Republic President. His appointment caused a stir in his alma mater, among communist students and from the Acción Democrática party, who protested against his election, invoking two arguments: one, his doctrinal position; and another, his obligation to go to congress, since he had not yet completed his term as deputy. Caldera replied that his ideology was known, but that he would be respectful of other currents of thought; and as regards his legislative work, that he would have no objection to going to congress and maintaining the chair, but that in any case he was willing to sacrifice his attendance at parliamentary sessions. In 1943, when the oil reform was discussed, he could not attend the congress, because he would lose his university chair.
In 1951 he was awarded the title of Honorary Professor of the Universidad Mayor de San Marcos, Lima, Peru; in 1958, honorary professor at the University of Los Andes and the University of Zulia and, from there, honorary professorships and doctorates from a greater number of forty university institutions in the world, including the University of Leuven, in Belgium (1979); Perugia (1973) and Sassari (1992), in Italy; Deusto (1980) and La Laguna (1976), in Spain; Hebrew of Jerusalem (1981), in Israel; Washington Catholic (1980), Puerto Rico Catholic (1991), Connecticut (1986), Notre Dame (1964), Nebraska (1981) and Florida (1979), in the United States; People's University (1993), China; and The Sorbonne (1998), in France. In 1996 he entered the Royal European Academy of Doctors as an "honorary member", with the speech "The Law in the 21st century".
Among the distinctions from Latin American and Venezuelan universities, the one from his alma mater, the Central University of Venezuela, stands out, which unanimously awarded him as an honorary professor in 1976, despite the criticism leveled at him for having paved this house of studies during his first presidency (1969-1971).
In 1953, he joined the Academy of Political and Social Sciences, occupying "chair 2" of his adoptive father, Tomás Liscano, with a speech entitled: "Idea of a Venezuelan sociology", which was answered by the academic Edgar Sanabria. On September 22, 1955, in response to Arturo Uslar Pietri's incorporation speech to this academy, he exposed his thesis "Dominate oil":
...the experience is saying that "sewing oil" is part of a broader, bound yet ambitious goal: it is necessary to dominate oil. We have to abandon the concept of oil as a reality that escapes our hands, to gain the idea of oil as a subordinate element to our national reality. This must lead us to an increasingly fruitful understanding of private, national and foreign initiatives and the growing collaboration of our human capital in the exploitation of this national wealth.
In 1961 he was president of the organizing committee of the VI Congress of the Latin American Sociological Association. In the so-called "Congress of Caracas", Caldera proposed taking political parties into consideration in the debate on Latin American social change. He was president of this association in the period 1961-1963. On November 29, 1967, he joined the Academy of Language, occupying the chair left by José Manuel Núñez Ponte, with the speech: "Language as a social link and Latin American integration", which was answered by the poet Fernando Paz Castillo. He was president of the Venezuelan Association of Sociology, of the Venezuelan Institute of Labor Law and director of the "Editorial Commission of the Complete Works of Andrés Bello".
Political life
It is part of the Federation of Students of Venezuela (FEV), led by the Generation of 28 –much older than this– but ends up separating, with a group of students, due to the position that the federation adopts against the freedom of education and, particularly, to Catholic education, by requesting the expulsion of the Jesuits and other religious orders from the country, and founding the National Student Union (UNE), which came to constitute the Venezuelan Social Christian movement (1936). Caldera will define it as an organization that "moves towards an unmistakable ideal: that of a truly free homeland, in a straight democracy...".
He also created and directed the weekly UNE. In 1937 he was arrested, together with his UNE colleagues, for having broken into the headquarters of the weekly Fantoches, directed by the journalist and comedian Leoncio Martínez, with the purpose of claiming the mockery that the publication frequently made about them, for this reason he resigns from the position of deputy director of the National Labor Office. Caldera, years later, recounts how this incident was overcome: «If I can make any personal reference to show that that matter was definitively finished, it is that I am honored by the friendship of the widow of Leoncio Martínez and that in 1958 I had the satisfaction of being interviewed, with a very complimentary introduction, by Manuel Martínez, who had been his uncle's closest collaborator in Fantoches».
Already graduated from the university, he founded an electoral movement called Acción Nacional to participate in the municipal elections, which later became the Partido Acción Nacional (1941-45), being elected deputy to Congress for the state of Yaracuy (1941- 44). There, as the youngest representative, he participates in the debates on the Border Treaty with Colombia and the Reform of the Civil Code. In 1945 he is appointed Attorney General of the Nation by the Revolutionary Government Junta that overthrew President Isaías Medina Angarita and which is headed by Rómulo Betancourt.
On January 13, 1946, he founded the Independent Electoral Political Organization Committee (COPEI). At the installation ceremony, Caldera said in his speech «We want social reform, we want it; a profound reform, felt and practiced by all. We want social peace, that peace that means solidarity, national awareness, understanding, since in constant, fruitless litigation, we would only use up the few human resources we have left. We preach the need to compact ourselves, precisely so that we can solve problems that other Latin American peoples already solved more than fifty years ago, and that we, in this perpetual pulling our hair out, have not wanted or known how to solve» Four months after the founding of COPEI, he resigned from the position of Attorney General of the Nation in a rally in San Cristóbal, Táchira state, on April 13, 1946, in the face of attacks against his new political party by government militants.
He is elected representative for the Federal District to the National Constituent Assembly (1946-47), chaired by the poet Andrés Eloy Blanco and, as the main leader of the opposition, in his first speech he requests the radio transmission of the debates, which which constitutes a new fact that has become an event in the country: "So that the Venezuelan people, whose this Assembly is acting on their behalf, find themselves deeply immersed in what we have come here to discuss, to the President of the Constituent Assembly, which has been with me, from this very hemicycle, opposition deputy, I ask you to administratively order that the sessions of this Constituent Assembly be broadcast on the radio so that the people can listen to them". relationship with Andrés Eloy Blanco, he writes an article after his death in which he calls him "The shock absorber of the Constituent".
At the age of thirty-one, he is a presidential candidate for the first time in the elections in which the famous novelist Rómulo Gallegos, who had been his examiner in high school, was announced as unbeatable. Gallegos will win (871,752 votes), and Caldera will get second place (262,204 votes), but a long way from first. After the writer was overthrown by a military coup, Venezuela is presided over by a Military Junta, of which Colonel Carlos Delgado Chalbaud is the head until his assassination in 1950. Later the leadership is assumed by a civilian, Germán Suárez Flamerich, under the tutelage of the Colonels Marcos Pérez Jiménez and Luis Felipe Llovera Páez. Caldera carried out an action of civic resistance to the regime, in which he called for the closure of the Guasina concentration camp, as well as the cessation of illegal detentions. He was elected representative to the 1952 Constituent Assembly, called by the ruling party, to which did not attend as a sign of protest against the expulsion of the members of the Democratic Republican Union and the Communist Party of Venezuela.
On September 15 of that year, at the closing of the VI National Convention of COPEI, he explained: «we put the Government in a dilemma that is distressing for it, but that will always give Venezuela something to win: either it really opens the way to the expression of the popular will and rectify... or he persecutes us, imprisons us, tramples us and, then, the general conscience will rise up more energetically, more unanimously, to repudiate the Government". He is imprisoned several times; he is suspended a program on Televisa, called Aula de Conferencias TV; and he is expelled from the Central University of Venezuela. On August 3, 1955, National Security agents, led by Pedro Estrada, threw a bomb from the street into the bedroom of Caldera's house, endangering the life of one of his young children. On August 20, 1957, he is imprisoned, isolated, being the probable unitary candidate for the presidential elections that were to be held in December of that year and that Pérez Jiménez transforms into a plebiscite.
In January 1958, he went into exile for a few days, to New York City, where he was received by Rómulo Betancourt and Jóvito Villalba, who are, together with Caldera, the leaders of the new democracy before the fall of the regime of Marcos Pérez Jiménez, on January 23, 1958, and they will have to sign, together with their parties, the Puntofijo Pact, named like that by journalists, taking the name of the Caldera house, where it was signed, the Quinta Puntofijo de Caldera, located on Avenida Francisco Solano López in the Las Delicias sector of Sabana Grande. Caldera is one of the main promoters and guarantors of the pact. Between mid-1958 and 1961, he offered a series of televised talks on the "Actualidad Política" program on Radio Caracas Televisión, in which he addressed the issues of national unity and presidential candidacies. For this program, he received the award in February 1959. "Guaicaipuro de Oro", awarded by the Circle of Radio and TV Chroniclers.
Since consensus had not been reached for a unitary candidate, his party presented him for the second time as presidential candidate in the 1958 elections, won by Rómulo Betancourt (1,284,092 votes), followed by Wolfgang Larrazábal (903,479 votes)., and occupying third place (396,293 votes). Caldera goes on the congressional lists and is elected deputy for the Federal District and president of the chamber. In this capacity, he co-chairs with Raúl Leoni, the "Commission for drafting the 1961 Constitution", in whose drafting he is attributed a fundamental role.
As general secretary of COPEI (1948-1969), he participated in the coalition popularly known as the "guanábana" in support of the government of President Betancourt, in which the Ministers of Public Works, Justice and Agriculture and Animal Husbandry, the Social Christians, Lorenzo Fernández, Godofredo González and Hugo Pérez La Salvia; Andrés Aguilar, Miguel Ángel Landáez and Ezequiel Monsalve Casado; Víctor Giménez Landínez and Miguel Rodríguez Viso. For the third time he was a presidential candidate for his party in the 1963 elections, which the Acción Democrática candidate, Raúl Leoni, won (957,574 votes), with Caldera occupying second place (589,177 votes). During these years, Caldera was elected President of the Christian Democratic Organization of America (ODCA) (1964-1968), and then President of the Christian Democratic World Union (1967-1968). He is also one of the architects of the start of activities of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Latin America. As a Christian-Democratic ideologue, Caldera formulates the thesis of "International Social Justice", according to which:
...the idea of social justice is to move into the field of relations between peoples; and that the system of the old trade treaties between one country and another, which presuppose arithmetic equality ('I guarantee you market for your primary products, but, to the equivalent extent, you guarantee me market for my manufacturing products'), you have to be abandoned to establish differential rules that impose as an obligation - not as merely voluntary action or ranks most powerful.
During Leoni's presidential term, his party abandoned the government coalition with a line called "autonomy of action" and as the main leader of the opposition he was a presidential candidate for the fourth time, managing to be elected President of the Republic (1,083,712 votes) by a small difference over his main contender, Gonzalo Barrios (1,050,806 votes) from AD, as the greatest division suffered by this party occurred with the candidacy of Luis Beltrán Prieto Figueroa for a new party, the People's Electoral Movement (719,461 votes). In this regard, the historian Manuel Caballero says that this victory, beyond the "fortune" of the AD division: "the million votes that elevated him to the Presidency was the product of long patience; the accumulated interests of a political capital amassed without giving in to the temptation of speculating on the stock market".
First presidency (1969-1974)
Rafael Caldera makes history by being the first Venezuelan from an opposition party to assume constitutional government in a peaceful and democratic manner and, furthermore, to have to govern in a parliamentary minority, having 28% of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 31% in the Senate. COPEI also makes history by being the only party in Venezuela to come to power "without the agony of violence."
During his government, the guerrillas who were still up in arms were pacified and incorporated into democratic life, to the point that their parties were legalized and they freely participated in the 1973 elections. For the first time in five years, there was no a barracks or military uprising. In the international aspect, it abandons the Betancourt Doctrine and under the thesis of "pluralistic solidarity" and "international social justice" establishes relations with all countries, including China, the Soviet Union, and begins the relaxation of relations with Cuba. In the same way, he initiates greater attention to relations with African countries and support for the so-called "Third World". In 1970, Venezuela attended the third conference of the Non-Aligned Movement in Zambia as an observer. Likewise, greater preponderance was given to the Venezuelan presence and influence in the Caribbean.
In this administration, the trade agreement with the United States was denounced; the Protocol of Port of Spain is signed, which opens a waiting period for twelve years in the negotiations between Venezuela and Guyana on the Essequibo territory; and the Andean Pact is definitively entered.
In economic matters, tax participation in the oil business increases; it nationalizes the gas and advances the reversion of the assets of the oil industry, which later facilitates its nationalization. The El Tablazo Petrochemical Complex is inaugurated. Venezuela has an average growth of 5% in the constitutional period (with peaks of 7.6% in 1970 and 6.9% in 1973) and an average inflation of 3.3% per year.
It revalues the bolivar twice, in agreement with the Central Bank of Venezuela, bringing it to 4.30 per dollar, which is criticized by some business sectors. It puts into force the Administrative Career Law and promotes decentralization with the creation of eight administrative regions and the corresponding development corporations and the program called La Conquista del Sur for the south of Bolívar state, the Páez District of Apure state and the then Amazonas Federal Territory.
His priorities are education and housing. In educational matters, it implements the basic and diversified cycle in secondary education, institutionalizes educational communities, regionalizes policies, and creates University Colleges and University Institutes of Technology. It doubles the number of secondary education institutes and triples the number of higher education institutes, among which are the Simón Bolívar University, the Simón Rodríguez University, the Táchira University and the Institute of Advanced Studies of National Defense. In terms of housing, his electoral campaign slogan of "one hundred thousand houses per year" cannot be achieved until the last year of his government, due to the participation of the private sector, since Congress refused to finance the project. The same thing happened with the plan for equipping neighborhoods and the Secretariat for Popular Promotion, innovative programs that he tried to launch at the national level. "In 1973, the record number of 108,000 units built in one year was reached, for a total number of 291,233 in the period, which is equivalent to 5.43 housing units per thousand inhabitants."
In terms of infrastructure and roads, works such as the Poliedro de Caracas, the Central Park, the buildings of the Ministry of Education, the Courts of the Republic and the Central Bank of Venezuela were built and put into service; the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Ríos Reyna Hall of the Teresa Carreño Cultural Complex in Caracas, the Fine Arts Theater in Maracaibo and the Soto Museum in Ciudad Bolívar; the general hospitals of Maracay, Coro, Mérida, San Carlos, Valle de La Pascua, Chiquinquirá in Maracaibo and Miguel Pérez Carreño and Los Magallanes de Catia in Caracas; the extension of Avenida Boyacá or Cota Mil, from La Castellana to La Urbina and its connection with the Francisco Fajardo Highway, where its second floor was built, the El Ciempiés Interchange, the Baralt Interchange, the La Araña-Caricuao section and the Prados del Este-La Trinidad highway; highways such as Barquisimeto-Yaritagua, Valencia-Campo de Carabobo and Barcelona-Crucero de Maturín; avenues such as José Antonio Páez in San Felipe, La Limpia and Padilla in Maracaibo, Libertador in Acarigua, Los Leones in Barquisimeto, Leonardo Ruiz Pineda in Coro, Andrés Bello in Mérida, Isaías Medina Angarita in San Cristóbal, Constitución in Puerto La Cruz and Porlamar-El Valle in Nueva Esparta; the La Chinita airport in Maracaibo, Santiago Mariño in Porlamar and Las Piedras in Paraguaná; The El Morro Tourist Complex in Puerto La Cruz; the Caracas Protection Zone and the relief channels of the Neverí rivers, in Barcelona and Manzanares, in Cumaná; the José Antonio Páez dam in Mérida and phases three and four of the Guri, in Guayana, among others.
The first lady, Alicia Pietri de Caldera, presides over the Fundación Festival del Niño and carries out programs such as the Vacation Plan, the television program Sopotocientos, the books by Páginas para imaginar, the parks in pocket, the mini-baseball courts, the week of arts and culture, the day of the hospitalized child and others.
At the end of his government, he decreed the new regulation of the Labor Law, by means of which he incorporated farm workers to the protection of the law and a rectification of the limits with Brazil was carried out, which increased the surface of the national territory from 912,050 to 916,445 square kilometers. Likewise, at the end of his government, there is an increase in oil prices that generate extraordinary resources for Venezuela for an amount greater than all the internal and external debt contracted up to that moment by the country. In the words of the historian Manuel Caballero, in his History of Venezuelans in the 20th century (2010), regarding Caldera's passage through the presidency "there are two aspects that will establish and expand his prestige: the contribution that His way of being will give the institutional majesty of the State and, as part of that, the neatness in the management of public money."
His successor, who had been general secretary of the main opposition party, said upon taking the oath of office: "I will continue the works of the outgoing government that today the illustrious Venezuelan Rafael Caldera hands me with clean hands."
Ministerial Cabinet
| Ministerial Cabinet 1969-1974 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Ministry | Name | Period |
| Internal Relations | Lorenzo Fernández | 1969-1972 |
| Nectario Andrade Labarca | 1972-1974 | |
| Foreign Affairs | Arístides Calvani | 1969-1974 |
| Finance | Pedro Tinoco | 1969-1972 |
| Luis Enrique Oberto | 1972-1974 | |
| Defence | Martín García Villasmil | 1969-1971 |
| Jesus Carbonell Left | 1971-1972 | |
| Gustavo Pardi Dávila | 1972-1974 | |
| Development | Haydée Castillo | 1969-1971 |
| Héctor Hernández Carabaño | 1971-1974 | |
| Public works | José Curiel | 1969-1974 |
| Education | Héctor Hernández Carabaño | 1969-1971 |
| Enrique Pérez Olivares | 1971-1974 | |
| Justice | Nectario Andrade Labarca | 1969-1970 |
| Orlando Tovar Tamayo | 1970-1971 | |
| Edilberto Escalante | 1971-1974 | |
| Mines and Hydrocarbons | Hugo Pérez La Salvia | 1969-1974 |
| Labour | Alfredo Tarre Murzi | 1969-1970 |
| Nectario Andrade Labarca | 1970-1972 | |
| Alberto Martini Urdaneta | 1972-1974 | |
| Communications | Ramón José Velásquez | 1969-1971 |
| Enrique Bustamante Luciani | 1971-1974 | |
| Agriculture | Jesús López Luque | 1969-1971 |
| Daniel Scott Cuervo | 1971-1972 | |
| Miguel Rodríguez Viso | 1972-1974 | |
| Health and Social Welfare | Lisandro Latuff | 1969-1970 |
| Joseph of Jesus Mayz Lyon | 1970-1974 | |
| Secretary of the Presidency | Luis Alberto Machado | 1969-1974 |
| Cordiplan | Luis Enrique Oberto | 1969-1972 |
| Antonio Casas González | 1972-1974 | |
Senator for Life
In 1974 he joined Congress as a senator for life and announced that he would only participate in debates of high national interest, which he did in 1975, in the discussion of the Oil Industry Nationalization Law; in 1977, in the discussion of the Municipal Regime Law; and in 1978, to respond to the message from President Pérez, in which he had made a balance of his four-year administration.
That year, he participated in the presidential campaign of his party's candidate, Luis Herrera Campíns (who was the winner), accompanying him in demonstrations, supporting him on television spots, after having been the presenter of his candidacy during the First Social Christian Congress National, on August 18, 1977, at the Poliedro de Caracas.
In July 1979 he was elected president of the World Congress on Agrarian Reform held in Rome and, in September, president for a period of three years (1979-1982) of the World Inter-Parliamentary Union.
In 1980 he was appointed president of the "Commission for the creation of the University for Peace" by the Secretary General of the United Nations, Kurt Waldheim. In 1983, in the Social Christian Presidential Congress, he was elected candidate for the COPEI party for the December elections of that year, in which Jaime Lusinchi, the candidate of the Acción Democrática (AD) party, was the winner (3,773,731 votes), occupying second place. (2,298,176 votes).
In 1985 he was appointed president of the "Bicameral Commission for the Reform of the Labor Law", whose project he presented in 1989 and was approved at the end of 1990. In June 1989, he presided over the "Bicameral Commission for the Reform of the Constitution", whose project is presented in 1992. It is approved in the first and second discussion in the Chamber of Deputies and in the first discussion in the Senate but, its discussion restarted in the new period of parliamentary sessions 1994-1999, it is not approved. The project intended to expand citizen participation with new institutions such as recall, approval, consultative and repeal referendums; the creation of new figures such as the Prime Minister and the Ombudsman; and the reform of the Judiciary.
In 1987 he tried to be the presidential candidate of his COPEI party, but lost the nomination to his political dolphin, Eduardo Fernández and became what he called "the reserve", refraining from participating in the electoral debate of the presidential campaign of 1988. In the words of university professor and academic Juan Carlos Rey:
Although, at first, many could believe that it was only a dispute for the presidential candidacy and for the control of the party, the subsequent development of the events indicates that it is actually a much deeper difference, and that it is not reduced to a question of “political style”, because it involves fundamental divergences about the philosophical and doctrinal bases of a party that aspires to remain social-Christian.
On March 1, 1989 and February 4, 1992, as a senator for life, he used the speaker's rostrum in Congress to refer to the events of the Caracazo and the 4F, in speeches that are widely collected and disseminated and about which which the philosopher Luis Castro Leiva would say: "Never before in its recent past had the Republic requested so much from one voice and obtained so much in return." In his speeches, Caldera ratified his position against the neoliberal policies arising from the Washington Consensus, by questioning the measures known as "the economic package" of President Carlos Andrés Pérez, who had been elected for the second time to occupy the presidency.
As regards the words of 1992, a critical current was also created that accused them of being "an absolutely opportunistic discourse" to catapult his 1993 electoral campaign, as the political leader of Acción Democrática, Octavio Lepage, affirmed years later. In a long interview, published as a book, made by the journalist Ramón Hernández to the historian Germán Carrera Damas, the latter accuses Caldera of "political opportunism, not ideological inconsistency." He also states that "Caldera has the rare merit of having destroyed his work."
Weeks after the Caracazo, Caldera accompanies Pérez to a meeting in Atlanta, in which the Secretary of State of the United States, James Baker, participates, on foreign debt, a subject on which Caldera had been making observations and claims in different international settings.
In 1993 he presented himself again as a presidential candidate for a group of parties known as the Chiripero and a new political group formed by Social Christians called Convergence, which is coordinated by his son Juan José. For this reason, the National Committee of his COPEI party approved his exclusion, with the saved vote of former President Luis Herrera Campíns.
Beyond personal or generational conflicts, there is an argumentative current that explains Caldera's return due to the rise of a materialism and individualism that is harmful to Venezuelan democracy and due to the dented confidence in the probity of the political elite. re-elected President with an advantage of almost four hundred thousand votes (1,710,722 votes) over his main contender, Claudio Fermín (1,326,287 votes), in an election where for the first time the phenomenon of abstention appears significantly in Venezuela (39.84%).
Second presidency (1994-1999)
Caldera assumes the presidency for the second time in the midst of a financial crisis that had begun in the previous government period, caused mainly by the concentration of treasury shares and the granting of self-loans to shareholders and front men of a significant number of banks, and that devastates half of the savings system. According to the Ministry of Finance, "the total resources that the Nation had to allocate during the year 1994 to assist the intervened and nationalized financial institutions rose to the sum of 1,037,043 million bolivars", equivalent to 12% of the gross product. of that year.
Low oil prices forced him to cut the 1994 budget by 10% and the Sosa plan was put into effect, fundamentally of a tax nature, which reforms and puts into effect various tax laws and creates the Integrated National Service of Tax Administration (SENIAT). The distrust generated by the banking crisis and the resignation of the president of the Central Bank of Venezuela prompted the government to decree a state of emergency, the suspension of constitutional guarantees and an exchange control that remains in force until April 1996. financial aid policy started to apply from the government of Ramón J. Velázquez is replaced by a transfer from the banks to the State for a symbolic value of one bolivar to be re-capitalized and returned to the financial system, based on a report presented by a commission of the International Monetary Fund. The Superintendency of Banks is strengthened and many of the previously nationalized financial entities were privatized (Banco de Venezuela, Banco Consolidado, Banco Unión).
The situation of parliamentary minority in which the government found itself did not get the approval of any of the economic plans formulated and ended up contradicting the proposals made during the electoral campaign by going to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), with the presentation of a program called Agenda Venezuela. With similarities to the criticized program of the second Pérez government in 1989, the agenda is differentiated by the search from the executive for consensus with the different sectors of society.
However, the oil opening, implemented under the leadership of PDVSA, substantially reduces the financing needs requested from the IMF and the economy, from a negative growth rate in 1994 (-2.3%), which passes to be positive in 1995 (3.9%) and negative again in 1996 (-0.2%), it reaches a high level in 1997 (6.3%). However, in 1998, the fall in oil prices had a negative impact on the economy and the mood of Venezuelans (-0.11%).
The accumulated experience of managing deficit budgets led the government to create in 1998, by means of Decree No. 2,991 with the rank and force of law, the Investment Fund for Macroeconomic Stabilization, to avoid future budget difficulties in times of low oil prices. Companies such as SIDOR and several hotel complexes are privatized. In the social field, despite budgetary difficulties, existing social programs are maintained and improved, such as the food scholarship, the Maternal and Child Food Program, multi-homes and day care homes, and new ones such as PROAL are created. for basic food and SUMED for access to medicines. Likewise, the Social Strengthening Fund is created to encourage the participation of neighborhood organizations in solving their own problems and to support civil society organizations in their social work. A program is developed with private participation for the beautification and maintenance of public areas and gardens, led by the first lady, Alicia Pietri de Caldera, called "A love for my city."
In terms of infrastructure and road works, the Macagua II dam in Guayana and Taguaza dam in Caracas are inaugurated; the regional aqueduct of the center in Valencia; the Mérida-El Vigía highway; the San Felipe-La Raya and Yagua-Puerto Cabello section of the Centro-Occidental highway; the San Carlos-Agua Blanca section of the José Antonio Páez highway and the San Juan de Uchire-Clarines section of the Rómulo Betancourt highway. Line 3 of the Caracas metro, the Jacobo Borges Museum and the Cruz Diez Museum are also inaugurated, and the Caracas-Cúa railway and the Yacambú-Quíbor hydrological complex are considerably promoted.
In 1997, a tripartite agreement was reached, between employers, workers and the State, which modifies the social benefits system, social security and creates pension funds, which would promote, among other things, the construction of households. However, the latter is frozen by the new government.
Regarding the foreign policy of the period, although the democracy promotion agenda was less active than in previous administrations and "devoid of a clear and comprehensive strategic design", the commitment assumed by Caldera to lead the debate on the the fight against corruption to international forums, and the promotion of projects to combat it on an international scale.
During his administration, he continued with the military pacification policy initiated by presidents Carlos Andrés Pérez and Ramón J. Velázquez, which culminated in the dismissal granted to those responsible for the coup attempts on February 4 and November 27 in 1992, with the leaders still in prison. Retired Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chávez Frías, who had remained at a very low level in the polls until December 1997 (4%), won the elections a year later, on 6 December 1998.
For the historian Margarita López Maya, although in the five-year period it was possible to "reach a certain political peace", the economic promises were not fulfilled, and "the situation of deterioration of the fundamental institutions of the State and of delegitimization of the political system".
Ministerial Cabinet
| Ministerial Cabinet 1994-1999 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Ministry | Name | Period |
| Internal Relations | Ramón Escovar Salom | 1994-1996 |
| José Guillermo Andueza | 1996–1998 | |
| Asdrúbal Aguiar | 1998–1999 | |
| Foreign Affairs | Miguel Ángel Burelli Rivas | 1994–1999 |
| Finance | Julio Sosa Rodríguez | 1994–1995 |
| Luis Raúl Matos Azócar | 1995–1998 | |
| Freddy Rojas Parra | 1998 | |
| Maritza Izaguirre | 1998–1999 | |
| Defence | Rafael Montero Revette | 1994–1995 |
| Moses Orozco Graterol | 1995-1996 | |
| Pedro Valencia Vivas | 1996–1997 | |
| Tito Manlio Rincón Bravo | 1997–1999 | |
| Development | Luis Carlos Palacios | 1994 |
| Alberto Poletto | 1994–1995 | |
| Werner Corrales | 1995-1996 | |
| Freddy Rojas Parra | 1996–1999 | |
| Industry and Trade | Freddy Rojas Parra | 1997–1998 |
| Héctor Maldonado Lira | 1998–1999 | |
| Transport and Communications | César Quintini Rosales | 1994 |
| Ciro Zaa Álvarez | 1994-1996 | |
| Moses Orozco Graterol | 1996–1998 | |
| Julio César Martí Espina | 1998–1999 | |
| Education | Antonio Cárdenas Colmenter | 1994–1999 |
| Justice | Rubén Creixens Savignon | 1994-1996 |
| Enrique Meier Echeverría | 1996–1997 | |
| Hilarión Cardozo Esteva | 1997–1999 | |
| Mines and Hydrocarbons | Edwin Arrieta Valera | 1994–1999 |
| Labour | Juan Nepomuceno Garrido | 1994–1997 |
| María Bernardoni de Govea | 1997–1999 | |
| Environment | Roberto Pérez Lecuna | 1994–1997 |
| Rafael Martínez Monro | 1997–1999 | |
| Agriculture | Ciro Áñez Fonseca | 1994–1995 |
| Raúl Alegrett Ruiz | 1995–1998 | |
| Ramón Ramírez López | 1998–1999 | |
| Health and Social Welfare | Vicente Pérez Dávila | 1994 |
| Carlos Walter Valecillos | 1994–1995 | |
| Pedro Rincón Gutiérrez | 1995–1997 | |
| José Félix Oletta | 1997–1999 | |
| Urban Development | Ciro Zaa Álvarez | 1994 |
| Francisco González | 1994–1997 | |
| Julio César Martí Espina | 1997–1998 | |
| Luis Granados | 1998–1999 | |
| Family | Mercedes Pulido | 1994-1996 |
| Carlos Altimari Gásperi | 1996–1999 | |
| Secretary of the Presidency | Andrés Caldera Pietri | 1994-1996 |
| Asdrúbal Aguiar | 1996–1998 | |
| José Guillermo Andueza | 1998–1999 | |
| Cordiplan | Enzo del Búffalo | 1994 |
| Luis Carlos Palacios | 1994 | |
| Werner Corrales | 1994–1995 | |
| Edgar Paredes Pisani | 1995-1996 | |
| Teodoro Petkoff | 1996–1999 | |
| CVG | Alfredo Grúber | 1994 |
| Elijah Nadim Inaty | 1994–1999 | |
Final years
Caldera returns to his same house when leaving government, as he did at the end of his first administration. He publicly opposes the Constituent Assembly convened by the new president, considering it a violation of the current constitution of 1961. As a consequence of the promulgation of the new constitution, the figure of senator for life is eliminated and that leads him to benefit from retirement that corresponded to him as a parliamentarian. He writes weekly in the press and publishes his latest book, Los suceaubientes, de Carabobo a Puntofijo (1999), which was presented by his former Cordiplan minister and former presidential candidate, Teodoro Petkoff.
Parkinson's disease isolated him more and more until he passed away, one month shy of his ninety-fourth birthday, in the early morning of December 24, 2009. Two years later, on February 9, 2011, his wife, Alicia Pietri, dies.
Caldera was fluent in several languages, including English, French, German, Italian, and Portuguese. He exercised daily at his house and played billiards, ping-pong, and Creole balls, but his favorite hobby was dominoes.He had six children, thirteen grandchildren, and thirteen great-grandchildren, at the time of the death of him
Public Image
Rafael Caldera is remembered as one of the most complete orators in Venezuela, as stated by the politician Rodolfo José Cárdenas in a profile he wrote under the title "How is Caldera?" pronounced before the plenary session of the United States Congress, in 1970; at the celebration of the twenty years of the Encyclical Populorum progressio in Vatican City, in 1987, chosen by John Paul II, a fact that made him one of the few laymen to have been heard by the College of Cardinals in Rome; and before the General Courts of Spain, in 1996, in some improvised words in which he defended the parliamentary institution.
During his public life, he was parodied by a variety of comedians, among which stand out: José Ignacio Cadavieco, Pepeto López and Laureano Márquez, all linked to the humorous RCTV program: Radio Rochela, in which he participated during the 1983 presidential campaign with the characters from the sketch Asocierro. He was also caricatured by the political cartoonists of the time, such as Pedro León Zapata, Sancho, Ras and Muñoz, among others.
Caldera was perceived as a man of "deep culture", as a respected professor, so much so that from a very young age, in political life he was always called "Dr. Caldera »and never by his first name. In a distant sense, it was one of the historical leaders of democracy who understood the importance of television to communicate with Venezuelan homes and from there his participation in numerous interview programs, among which, Horangel and the twelve of the sign, is revealing of facets. unknown of his personality.
Part of the criticism received has been that of messianism, his responsibility for the dismissal of Hugo Chávez and part of the military in the 1992 attempts, as well as his role in the termination of the representative democratic process that he had helped to found, as asserted by the journalist and researcher Andrés Cañizalez, in an article that he dedicated to Caldera on the occasion of the commemoration of its centenary.
Among the authors who have written negative assessments of Caldera, we can name the leader of the Venezuelan extreme right, Germán Borregales, when he denounced Caldera for surrendering to communism; the confidences of the head of repression during the Marcos dictatorship Pérez Jiménez, Pedro Estrada, who accuses Caldera of being a fascist. The essays and reports published on his second presidential term: The intrigues of Power (1997), by Juan Carlos Zapata; Illegitimate Caldera (1999) by Ignacio Quintana, among others. More recently, the book by journalist Mirtha Rivero: The rebellion of the castaways (2010).
In a report by Gonzalo Álvarez published by the magazine Momento in mid-1967, it was stated that Caldera's weight was 80 kg and his height was 1.77 meters.
An urban legend suggested that Caldera was the godfather of Hugo Chávez's promotion in the army. There is a second version that placed him as his baptismal godfather, both of which were denied by the Caldera Pietri family and Chávez himself.
As part of the commemoration of the centennial year of his birth, the Caldera Pietri family, together with the Tomás Liscano Foundation, present the Rafael Caldera Oficial website, thus becoming the first digital presidential library from Venezuela.
Election results
Presidential Elections
| Election | Party | Votes | Opponents | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1947 |  | 262.204 votes | Romulo Gallegos (AD) Gustavo Machado (PCV) | No electorate |
| 1958 | | 423.262 votes | Rómulo Betancourt (AD) Wolfgang Larrazábal (URD) | No electorate |
| 1963 | | 589.177 votes | Raul Leoni (AD) Jóvito Villalba (URD) | No electorate |
| 1968 | | 1,083,712 votes | Gonzalo Barrios (AD) Miguel A. Burelli (URD) | Elect |
| 1983 | | 2.298.176 votes | Jaime Lusinchi (AD) | No electorate |
| 1993 |  | 1,710,772 votes | Claudio Fermín (AD) Oswaldo Á. Paz (COPEI) | Elect |
Parliamentary Elections
| Election | Period | Party | Cargo | Entity | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1947 | 1948 | | Representative | Federal District | Elect |
| 1958 | 1959-64 | | Representative (Vice-Chairman 1959-62) | Federal District | Elect |
| *I would not participate again in parliamentary elections due to their status Vital Senatorobtained after his first presidential term. | |||||
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