Presidency of Jaime Lusinchi

Jaime Lusinchi, 42nd President of Venezuela
Presidency of Jaime Lusinchi 2 February 1984 – 2 February 1989
Party	Democratic Action
Seat	Miraflores Palace, Caracas
Presidential Standard (1970-1997)

Jaime Lusinchi served as President of Venezuela from 1984 to 1989 for Democratic Action.

Background

The adecos chose Jaime Lusinchi and Caldera once more stood up for his party COPEI. The divided socialists offered Teodoro Petkoff and José Vicente Rangel. Petkoff had broken with the Communist Party and, with the veteran leader Pompeyo Márquez, had founded in 1971 the Movement for Socialism (MAS in Spanish), which was more or less inspired by the Prague Spring, when Czech communists tried to liberalize their country in 1968. MAS was still Marxist but edging to left of center. Rangel was the son of a general during the Gómez autocracy, but he entered politics in 1958 as a moderate leftist. Rangel denounced the abuses of the adeco governments of Betancourt and Leoni—he accused them of allowing the secret police and the army to torture detainees—and he was the MAS presidential candidate in 1973 and 1978, both times doing badly. Teodoro was particularly disliked by adeco pardos. Teodoro was always trying to displace Rangel as his party's choice and finally, in 1983, the two men had a chance to test each other's popularity.

Much of the campaign was taken up by an "underground" debate about Lusinchi's mistress, Blanca Ibañez, and adecos insisted that his legal wife had simply "to bite the bullet". When the results were in, bipolarity worked and the adecos proved that they still had the pardos on their side by garnering 56% of the vote, the highest margin ever in a Venezuelan election. Caldera was down, but, as we shall see, definitely not out. But there were two novelties in the results: although Petkoff got more votes than Rangel, together they got 7% of the vote, which the left had never before achieved, although it is questionable whether Teodoro at that point was in any way the radical he had been before. Another result was that abstentions were 12% and this was significant because, as we saw, voting was compulsory in Venezuela and by and large Venezuelans had been very dutiful in this respect, and now they showed that not voting was catching on.

Presidency

Corruption had always been an issue in Venezuela, but under Lusinchi it became the main issue, and most Venezuelans considered that corruption, and not sheer incompetence, was the root of all of society's ills. Lusinchi had divorced his wife and married Blanca Ibañez, who was considered very influential behind the scene and was blamed for abuse of power and nepotism. The Venezuelan economy stagnated, and the country at the end of Lusinchi's regime was reportedly bankrupt. It would be reasonable to surmise that this should have been the end of bipolarity in the next elections, but it would be wrong. In the 1988 elections, the two ruling parties got a total of 93% of the vote. Petkoff fared very badly, but abstentions went up to 18%. The winner was none other than Carlos Andrés Pérez, for his second term. (In the Venezuelan constitution you could be re-elected as many times as you wanted as long as it wasn’t in successive elections.) The question was: How could a country whose descent into insolvency began with Pérez, who had botched so badly his first term, when corruption flourished as never before, have re-elected him with a majority that was barely less than the one Lusinchi got? This enigma has various explanations. That pardos were still adecos is an obvious one. The opposition to bipolarity did not have a leader is another. But especially, Venezuelans of all hues simply remembered that during Pérez's first term there had been a lot of money in circulation, things over-all had not been so dismal, and somehow they figured that Pérez could perform the miracle of making Venezuela "prosperous" again.

Lusinchi's cabinet (1984-1989)

Ministries
OFFICE	NAME	TERM
President	Jaime Lusinchi	1984–1989
Homeland Affairs	Octavio Lepage	1984–1986
	José Ángel Ciliberto	1986–1988
	Simón Alberto Consalvi	1988–1989
Foreign Affairs	Isidro Morales Paúl	1984–1985
	Simón Alberto Consalvi	1985–1988
	Germán Nava Carrillo	1988–1989
Finance	Manuel Azpúrua Arreaza	1984–1987
	Héctor Hurtado	1987–1989
Defense	Humberto Alcalde Álvarez	1984
	Andrés Brito Martínez	1984–1986
	José Cardozo Grimaldi	1986–1987
	Heliodoro Guerrero	1987–1988
	Italo del Valle Alliegro	1988–1989
Development (Public Works)	Héctor Hurtado	1984–1986
	José Ángel Ciliberto	1986
	Gustavo Mirabal Bustillos	1986–1987
	Héctor Meneses	1987–1989
Transportation and Communications	Juan Pedro del Moral	1984–1988
	Vicente Pérez Cayena	1988–1989
Education	Ruth Lerner de Almea	1984–1985
	Luis Manuel Carbonell	1985–1987
	Pedro Cabello Poleo	1987–1988
	Laura Castillo de Gourfinkel	1988–1989
Justice	José Manzo González	1984–1988
	Pedro Torres Agudo	1988–1989
Energy (Mines and Oil)	Arturo Hernández Grisanti	1984–1988
	Julio César Gil	1988–1989
Environment	Orlando Castejón	1984
	Juan Francisco Otaola Paván	1984–1986
	Guillermo Colmenares Finol	1986–1989
	José Arnaldo Puigbó Motales	1988–1989
Agriculture	Felipe Gómez Álvarez	1984–1988
	Wenceslao Mantilla	1988–1989
Labor	Simón Antonio Paván	1984–1988
	José Arnaldo Puigbó Morales	1988–1989
Health and Social Assistance	Luis Maniel Manzanilla	1984–1985
	Otto Hernández Pieretti	1985–1987
	Francisco Montbrum	1987–1989
Urban Development	Rafael Martín Guédez	1984–1986
	César Quintana Romero	1986–1989
Youth	Milena Sardi de Selle	1984–1987
	Virginia Olivo de Celli	1987–1989
Secretary of Presidency	Simón Alberto Consalvi	1984–1985
	Carmelo Lauría Lesseur	1985–1988
	Carlos Croes	1988–1989
Office for Coordination and Planification	Luis Raúl Matos Azócar	1984–1986
	Leopoldo Carnevali	1986–1988
	Modesto Freites	1988–1989
CVG	Leopoldo Sucre Figarella	1984–1989

See also

• Night of the Tanks