The second presidency of Rafael Caldera or the Second Caldera Presidency or the Second Caldera Administration was Rafael Caldera's second tenure as the President of Venezuela, which began upon his second Inauguration, on February 2, 1994, and ended on February 2, 1999 after Hugo Chávez won the 1998 elections. He has previously been president from 1969 to 1974.
Presidential campaign +Venezuelan Presidential election 1993 Candidates Votes % Rafael Caldera 1,710,722 30.46% Claudio Fermín 1,325,287 23.60% Oswaldo Alvarez Paz 1,276,506 22.73% Andrés Velásquez 1,232,653 21.95% Abstention: 3,859,579 39.84% Total votes: 5,829,216 Andrés Caldera, the son of Rafael Caldera, served as the campaign's general secretary. Political strategist J. J. Rendón, who had previously advised Carlos Andrés Pérez in his campaign, also provided counsel to Rafael Caldera during his successful election bid.
In 1996, Cuban banker Orlando Castro Llanes testified in a Florida (U.S.) court that he had financed Caldera's campaign with a check for 20 million bolívars during the election.
Cabinet 1994-1999Gaceta Oficial de Venezuela, período 1994-1999.MinisterNamePeríodInternal RelationsRamón Escovar Salom1994–19961996–19981998–1999Foreign AffairsMiguel Ángel Burelli Rivas1994–1999TreasuryJulio Sosa Rodríguez1994–1995Luis Ramón Matos Azócar1995–1998Freddy Rojas Parra19981998–1999Defense1994–19951995–1996Pedro Valencia Vivas1996–1997Tito Manlio Rincón Bravo1997–1999DevelopmentLuis Carlos Palacios1994Alberto Poletto1994–19951995–1996Transport and CommunicationsCésar Quintín Rosales1994Ciro Zaa Álvarez1994–19961996–1998Julio César Martí Espina1998–1999Educación1994–1999JusticeRubén Creixens Savignon1994–1996Enrique Meier Echeverría1996–1997Hilarión Cardozo Esteva1997–1999Energy and MinesEdwin Arrieta Valera1994–1999WorkJuan Nepomuceno Garrido1994–1997María Bernardoni de Govea1997–1999EnvironmentRoberto Pérez Lecuna1994–1997Rafael Martínez Monró1997–1999Agriculture and BreedingCiro Añez Fonseca1994–1995Raúl Alegrett Ruiz1995–1998Ramón Ramírez López1998–1999Health and Social CareVicente Pérez Dávila1994Carlos Walter Valecillos1994–19951995–1997José Félix Oletta1997–1999Urban DevelopmentCiro Zaa Álvarez1994Francisco González1994–1997Julio César Martí Espina1997–1998Luis Granados1998–1999FamilyMercedes Pulido de Briceño1994–1996Carlos Altimari Gásperi1996–1999Industry and CommerceFreddy Rojas Parra1997–1998Héctor Maldonado Lira1998–1999DispatchAndrés Caldera1994–19961996–19981998–1999Cordiplan1994Luis Carlos Palacios19941994–19951995–1996Teodoro Petkoff1996–1999CVGAlfredo Grúber1994Elías Innaty1994–1999
Domestic policy In his second presidency, Caldera included politicians from other political backgrounds who supported his candidacy in his cabinet, like some representatives of MAS party, Teodoro Petkoff at the Ministry of the Central Office of Coordination and Planning, and Pompeyo Márquez at the Border Ministry, as well as some independents in other ministries. In any case the support of the MAS and other parties were fundamental to approve some laws in the National Congress in his first years of government, due to his own party having few seats in Congress. Due to differences with his coalition partners such as MAS, Caldera looked for the support of AD in Congress. Some AD members entered the Ministerial cabinet.
Legislative policy
Rafael Caldera had the support in Congress of his party Convergence and the Movement for Socialism (MAS), which together accounted for approximately one third of the votes, and therefore did not possess a parliamentary majority. In this context, Rafael Caldera publicly announced the possibility of convening a constituent assembly and dissolving Congress if he failed to reach agreements that would allow him to govern.
Judicial policy In 1994 Caldera fulfilled a promise made during the presidential campaign and pardoned the military figures involved in the 1992 Venezuelan coup d'état attempts. Many of these, once liberated, grouped in the political party MVR, under the leadership of Hugo Chávez, who ultimately, after several years in the political wilderness, won the 1998 presidential elections. Caldera later wrote in an article for El Universal that he regretted granting the pardon to Chávez.
On 18 April 1996, Antonio Espinoza, a member of the Bandera Roja party, was arrested at his home by the DISIP and held incommunicado. Amnesty International denounced that Espinoza's family had been denied information about his detention.
On 23 October 1996, the DISIP arrested astrologer José Bernardo Gómez and held him incommunicado for 48 hours after he had predicted days earlier that President Rafael Caldera would die before completing his term. According to historian José Sant Roz, "27 vehicles were seized, 14 homes were searched, his phone calls were traced, and neighbors, relatives, and friends were interrogated."
Defense The situation with the Armed Forces was delicate prior to Caldera's rise to power. The Minister of Defense under Ramón J. Velásquez's interim government, Radamés Muñoz León, remained in office until his resignation in January 1994. This came after Rafael Caldera announced the dismissal of the military high command following the failure of the two coup attempts on February 4 and November 27, 1992. According to the newspaper El Tiempo, "Caldera's decision was met with approval by political leaders".
Economics Economic crisis In the first year of his second presidency, Caldera was faced with a major financial crisis (Venezuelan banking crisis of 1994) that began with the failure of Banco Latino during the acting presidency of Ramón José Velásquez, continued with the failure of more than ten banks, and culminated with the loss of deposits. Money given by the government to the banks curtailed government spending in other areas, affecting thousands of people and creating a serious imbalance in the Venezuelan economy.
The confidence and credibility of Venezuelans and foreigners at the financial institutions were affected seriously. More than seventy thousand medium and small companies went bankrupt, fundamentally due to the exchange rate regime imposed by the government, which made it difficult to obtain the currency to acquire intermediate goods. The prices of food, clothes and transport rose without control, impoverishing a greater number of Venezuelans.
Caldera also had to handle a vertiginous inflationary spiral and a parallel reduction of the Forex reserves, employees generously for the support of the bolívar in front of the U.S. dollar. On 27 June, he announced the temporary suspension of some constitutional guarantees, fundamentally related to the private property and the free economic activity, to allow control of the exchange market, the banking system and prices by the State. The financial organizations bankrupted by the draining of deposits and those affected by speculative practices went to be adjusted by the State. In fact, the Central Bank of Venezuela announced the suspension of all its transaction in dollars. These economic measures were tolerated by the mass media and the international community, but not by the Venezuelan people.
Although Caldera promised during his campaign never to accept the help of the International Monetary Fund, his government had to rescind the vow, due to the economic crisis and bad management. The effect of the interventionist practice on the economy of Venezuela caused Caldera to announce the Agenda Venezuela (Venezuela Agenda) programme, which promised to restore the macroeconomic balance and to beat inflation. He applied liberalization measures in agreement with the recommendations of the IMF that he had previously resisted. The bolívar was devalued by 70%, the exchange rate regime was imposed, fuel prices were increased by 800%, rates of interest were liberalized, and the process of privatization was continued. His program was welcomed by the IMF, but not by the country. Demonstrations and disturbances among the population were frequent.
In 1997, a tripartite commission, consisting of representatives of industrialists, workers and the Government, assumed the reform of the regime of social benefits, and the deep revision of the labor law. The tripartite commission created a system of social benefits that anticipated, among other things, the annual payment and the cease of the labor performance, at the same time, five subsystems of social security with the purpose of improving the Government's activity, at the resolution of the basic problems of the Venezuelan workers.
Also during the second Caldera presidency, the process of began with the purpose of increasing the involvement of the private sector, national and international, in the operation, exploration and refinement of petroleum and natural gas. The worldwide oil market crisis negatively influenced this process.
Fugitive bankers case The Case of the Fugitive Bankers was a political scandal that took place in Venezuela in 1994 when several banks collapsed during the banking crisis of that year and their directors fled the country, among them Orlando Castro Llanes, Fernando Araújo, director of Banco Metropolitano, who was the son-in-law of the sitting president, Rafael Caldera, as well as Gustavo Gómez López of Banco Latino, José Bauza of Banco de Venezuela, and José Alvarez Sterling of Banco Consolidado.
The government of Rafael Caldera intervened in and nationalized 19 failed banking entities, granting them 7.5 billion dollars between 1994 and 1995 through the so-called “financial assistance” programs. Said bailout did not solve the banking crisis and resulted in an imbalance of public finances, which translated into a subsequent economic adjustment that caused social unrest. The bankers escaped without the justice system preventing it, which also generated criticism.
Fernando Araújo was convicted on several charges, among them the “diversion and fraudulent use of public funds”, which carried sentences of 2 to 10 years in prison.
The attorney general, Jesús Petit, accompanied New York prosecutor Robert Morgenthau when he announced the arrest and opening of fraud and theft proceedings against Orlando Castro Llanes, a Cuban banker, his son Orlando, and his grandson Jorge Castro. On 9 May 1996, Castro declared in a Florida court that he had financed Rafael Caldera with a check for 20 million bolívares for his presidential campaign. Castro also financed the campaign of Bill Clinton. In 1997, Vladimir Petit, deputy and son of Jesús Petit, admitted having received money from Castro for political activities “in the same way as other important Venezuelan and foreign politicians had done”.
Venezuela Agenda