Government of Luis Herrera Campins
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Luis Herrera Campins served as President of Venezuela from 1979 to 1984. Prior to his election, he founded the moderately conservative Christian COPEI party. He was succeeded by Jaime Lusinchi.


Background

In the Republic of Venezuela, presidents and congress were elected in the same election for five-year terms. At the 1978 election, AD fielded the unexciting Luis Piñerúa Ordaz and the COPEI selected Luis Herrera Campins. Some observers believed that Venezuelans were ready to elect a leader who opposed the lavish expenditures of predecessor
Carlos Andrés Pérez Carlos Andrés Pérez Rodríguez (27 October 1922 – 25 December 2010) also known as CAP and often referred to as '' El Gocho'' (due to his Andean origins), was a Venezuelan politician and the president of Venezuela from 12 March 1974 to 12 M ...
. Herrera Campins ran on the slogan "''¡Basta!''" ("Enough!") in reference to the spending levels at the time. The adecos were in a no-win situation disillusioned as they were with Pérez and unexcited by Piñerua, and Herrera defeated his Adeco adversary by a vote of 1,133,059 to 1,053,137. Venezuela had demonstrated once again that at the ballot level it was a working democracy.


Presidency

At the start of Herrera Campins' term, Venezuela's economy was succeeding due to high oil revenues. However, it also faced extremely high foreign debt due to the effects of spending by the previous President,
Carlos Andrés Pérez Carlos Andrés Pérez Rodríguez (27 October 1922 – 25 December 2010) also known as CAP and often referred to as '' El Gocho'' (due to his Andean origins), was a Venezuelan politician and the president of Venezuela from 12 March 1974 to 12 M ...
. During his campaign he pledged to reduce expenditures, but during his term he spent on extravagant projects such as the
Teresa Carreño Theater Teresa (also Theresa, Therese; french: Thérèse) is a feminine given name. It originates in the Iberian Peninsula in late antiquity. Its derivation is uncertain, it may be derived from Greek θερίζω (''therízō'') "to harvest or re ...
and expensive public works such as the Caracas Metro. He promised to other Latin American countries to supply them with oil. When oil prices fell in 1983, an economic depression began. Few presidents had practiced winner-takes-all as Herrera Campins did. Even full-blooded Social Christians who had worked for the Pérez administration were fired. But Herrera did have in his cabinet a few figures that were not copeyanos, among them Manuel Quijada, the former anti-democracy conspirator. (Later, Quijada was one of the political advisors of Chavez before the former paratrooper won the presidency.) He named the economist
Leopoldo Díaz Bruzual Leopoldo is a given name, the Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese form of the English, German, Dutch, Polish, and Slovene name, Leopold. Notable people with the name include: *Leopoldo de' Medici (1617–1675), Italian cardinal and Governor of Sien ...
to the Venezuelan Central Bank. Díaz Bruzual was a protégé of and advisor to Reinaldo Cervini, a very rich man who had life-time tenure at Pro-Venezuela, a kind of semi-official institute founded to promote Venezuelan industrialization. Cervini doubled as Maecenas to communist intellectuals, who would physically confront anyone who dared criticize their patron. Herrera Campins toned down the showiness of his predecessor, even though his government had another windfall when oil prices rose dramatically again in 1983. Venezuela had increased its indebtedness beyond the levels attained by the Pérez government. There was much talk at the time of "bipolarity", the belief that Venezuela was stuck forever in the cycle of AD-COPEI ruling alternatively but following the same policies of high-spending, high-bureaucracy, and a statized economy. One brash foreign policy initiative taken by Herrera either should have gladdened or encouraged militarists in Venezuela. When the Argentine military dictator and " dirty war" veteran
Leopoldo Galtieri Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri (; 15 July 1926 12 January 2003) was an Argentine general and politician of Italian descent who served as President of Argentina from December 1981 to June 1982. Galtieri ruled as a military dictator during the Natio ...
had the Falklands invaded in 1982, Venezuela officially, though not materially, backed the Argentine move. When dollars flooded Venezuela again, economists began talking of "overheating", although it wasn't clear whether they knew what they were talking about. It was pseudo-technical jargon, but Díaz Bruzual was among the adherents to this idea, if not actually the economist who got the "overheated" ball rolling. In the USA, president Jimmy Carter was fighting inflationary pressures and interests rates there, and in the industrialized nations generally, went up to unheard of levels. In Venezuela, a Canadian bank was offering interests as high as 21%. But because of the overheating thesis, Díaz Bruzual applied an old law whereby interest payments above 12% were considered usurious and illegal. Dollars started flowing out of Venezuela in the billions, and the central bank, which had always been zealous about national reserves, took fright at their growing depletion, but instead of counter-acting with incentives to reverse the outward flow, the bolivar was officially devalued by over 50% on its previous 4.30 to the dollar. The government, in brief, was not going to subsidize the bolivar at its previous rate. But the measure encouraged a further massive flight of dollars, and the government then clamped full currency control. During his presidency the inauguration of Teatro Teresa Carreno and the Metro de Caracas took place, along with the presidential election of Jaime Lusinchi of
Acción Democrática Democratic Action ( es, Acción Democrática, AD) is a Venezuelan social democratic and centre-left political party established in 1941. The party played an important role in the early years of Venezuelan democracy, leading the government durin ...
.


Herrera's cabinet (1979-1984)


See also

*
Viernes Negro ''Viernes Negro'' ( en, Black Friday) in Venezuela refers to Friday, 18 February 1983, when the Venezuelan bolívar was devalued substantially against the US dollar. This event caused a significant destabilization of the currency and the Venezuela ...


References

{{reflist History of Venezuela Campins, Luis Herrera