San Felipe, 1916 – Caracas (Venezuela), 2009
By Margarita López Maya
Founder and leading figure of the Christian Social Party (COPEI), an academic, and twice President of the Republic, Rafael Caldera belonged to a slightly younger generation than that of 1928, which included Rómulo Betancourt. Educated by Jesuits, he studied political and social sciences at the Central University of Venezuela (UCV). While there, he became involved with the Catholic Action movement and, in 1933, traveled to Rome for the Ibero-American Congress of Catholic Students, which would profoundly influence his social and political thought throughout his life. His political career effectively began in 1936. Along with other young Catholics, he split from the Federation of Students of Venezuela due to disagreements over the Marxist hegemony and leftist practices dominating the movement. He founded the National Union of Students (UNE) and later the Electoral Action, the National Action Movement, and the National Action Party, established in June 1942 to confront the Medinismo (referring to the government of Isaías Medina Angarita, 1941-1945), which they considered allied with communists. Finally, in January 1946, COPEI was organized and legalized the following year.
Caldera supported the October Revolution of 1945, and the Revolutionary Junta appointed him Attorney General of the nation. However, he soon left the position due to disagreements with the revolutionary political process. He served as a deputy in the Constituent Assembly from 1946 to 1947. A presidential candidate in 1947, he placed second, surpassed by Rómulo Gallegos. During the decade of dictatorship, he shifted from discreet support of the government to increasing opposition. At the end of the dictatorship, he went into exile.
It was at Rafael Caldera’s house that the Pacto de Ponto Fixo was established on October 31, 1958. He participated as one of COPEI’s representatives. The pact allowed for a political truce among AD, URD, and COPEI, committing these parties to recognize the electoral results of December—regardless of the outcome, a national unity government would be formed and a “common minimum program” established, while differences would be maintained within the limits of tolerance and mutual respect. The pact was envisioned by Rómulo Betancourt, who deemed the incorporation of COPEI essential for its success, given its ideological right-wing position, close to business sectors, the Catholic Church, and disarticulated Andean elites. The incorporation of COPEI implied the exclusion of the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV), as Caldera’s party, since its foundation, maintained a confessional nature and explicitly stated in its statutes that its ideological orientation was incompatible with communist doctrines.
Caldera was a presidential candidate in 1958 and 1963, but only in 1968 did he have his first opportunity. The division within AD that year opened the way for COPEI’s victory. Betancourt preferred to sacrifice his party by dividing it rather than allowing Professor Luis Beltrán Prieto Figueroa, from the more progressive wing, to come to power.
Caldera’s first government (1969-1974) achieved significant victories in stabilizing and institutionalizing democracy. This highlights the growing consolidation of agreements among the hegemonic signatories of the Pacto de Ponto Fixo. At the same time, it was a time of sociopolitical fervor, with labor sector advocacy actions and strikes in state-owned basic industries, as well as intense student mobilization influenced by the return to legality of the PCV, the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), and the foundation of the Movement for Socialism (MAS), as well as the academic renewal process. The repression of the labor and student movement was ruthless. In the Orinoco Iron and Steel industry, 514 workers were dismissed during the 1971 strike, and there was an intervention at the Central University of Venezuela, which was closed from 1970 to 1971, with protests viewed as an extension of armed struggle. The government approved a new University Law, which was rejected by the university sector, leading to strong belligerence.
His second government (1994-1998) corresponded to the process of hegemonic struggle and the transition to a new societal model. Caldera reached the presidency backed by an electoral movement he founded—the National Convergence Movement—when COPEI opposed supporting him as a presidential candidate. He was also the presidential candidate for MAS and a group of small political parties. He received the majority of the electorate’s votes, which in these elections repudiated the bipartite scheme in place since 1958. His government had to navigate numerous challenges, including the 1994-1995 banking and financial crisis, the most severe of the period. In 1996, he implemented the so-called Venezuela Agenda, a neoliberal economic adjustment and restructuring program. He suspended military personnel involved in the 1992 coups, including Hugo Chávez. He promoted a neoliberal policy of oil opening, a radical shift from the government’s strategy for the sector since at least 1943. This shift contributed to a sharp decline in oil barrel prices in international markets by 1998. These actions at the end of his term led to disillusionment among voters with moderate solutions, which was reflected in the radicalization of electoral choices.
Caldera was also a professor for nearly 25 years. He founded the Latin American Association of Sociology (ALAS) and the Venezuelan Institute of Labor Law, was a treatise writer on social law, and was a member of the Academy of Legal Sciences and the Venezuelan Academy of Language, receiving numerous honorary doctorates from national and international universities. He passed away on December 24, 2009, in Caracas.
