Venezuela: The Life and Times of the Party System - Political ...

camps. 1 AD maintained an underground organization throughout the dictatorship, supporting
clandestine networks and making several frustrated attempts to assassinate the military
leadership. Nonetheless, as late as mid-1957, the combination of strong economic resources, a
powerful police apparatus, and visible public backing by the United States made continued
military rule seem a safe bet.
But resistance mounted from that point, and the military regime unraveled quickly.
Confident of his position, Perez Jimenez called elections for December 1957, but with no warning
scrapped election plans in favor of a plebiscite. There was to be only one candidate for every
office; all Venezuelans over 18 and all foreigners with more than two years of residence were
declared eligible voters. The affront of the plebiscite helped unify and stimulate opposition, and
intramilitary support proved to be surprisingly brittle. Concern about the economy, resentment
over corruption, and mingled fear of and disdain for the secret police soon resulted in a failed
military coup on New Year’s Day, 1958. Although the attempt was put down, the dictator’s
invincible image had cracked. Underground political forces, now united in a Junta Patriótica,
mounted a wave of demonstrations and street fighting. 2 The regime collapsed in a few weeks,
and Perez Jimenez fled the country on January 23, 1958. A Provisional Government (under
mixed military and civilian rule) took over: elections were scheduled and held at the end of the
year. Perez Jimenez was Venezuela’s last military ruler.
The events of January 23, 1958 mark not only the restoration of democracy, but in a
deeper sense, the creation of a different and more enduring kind of democratic politics. The
democracy begun in 1958 has indeed survived, but more has been accomplished that just
hanging on to office. The parties themselves and the democracy they support and defend have
also changed. Within the overall history of democracy, we suggest a further periodization: the
trienio; the decade after 1958 (when enemies of Right and Left were isolated and defeated); the
subsequent fifteen years when democracy was consolidated around competition between AD and
COPEI; and the years since the mid-1980s, which combine sharp economic downturn and
growing electoral balance between AD and COPEI with bold innovations designed to make
Venezuelan democracy more flexible and democratic.
Political change after 1958 was driven by the lessons political actors chose to learn from
recent experience. Key members of the political class saw the fall of Perez Jimenez as a second
chance for democracy, an opportunity to correct past mistakes and avoid repeating the political
disasters of the trienio, which were identified above all as polarization, a sense of uncontrolled
conflict, and the alienation of powerful minorities. Many who had welcomed the coming of military
rule (opposition parties, foreign business, the Church) ended up suffering under Perez Jimenez
1 On the secret police, see Abreu (1964).
2 The period is described vividly in Kolb (1974) and also Stambouli (1980).