Luis Herrera Campins

Infobox_President | name=Luis Herrera


order=56th President of Venezuela
term_start=March 12, 1979
term_end=February 2 1984
predecessor=Carlos Andrés Pérez
successor=Jaime Lusinchi
office3=Senator for life
term_start3=February 2, 1984
term_end3=December 20, 1999
birth_date=May 4, 1925
birth_place=Acarigua, Portuguesa, Venezuela
death_date=death date and age|2007|11|9|1925|5|4
death_place=Caracas,VEN
party=Copei
religion=Roman Catholic


spouse=Betty Urdaneta| |

Luis Herrera Campins (May 4 1925 – November 9 2007) was President of Venezuela from 1979 to 1984. He was elected to one five-year term in 1978. He was a member of the COPEI party.

Early Life and career

Luis Herrera was born in Acarigua, Portuguesa. He was 21 years old when the Social Christian Party Copei was created, and he was one of the founders in Acarigua, Portuguesa. At the school "La Salle" of "Barquisimeto", he completed his high school degree in 1942. During that time he started work as a politician and journalist at the age of fifteen, working for the Newspaper "El impulso", in "Surcos" and the weekly magazine of the Student National Union. His law studies from the Central University of Venezuela were suspended in 1952 and he was imprisoned for four months in the "Cárcel Modelo" (Model Jail) by the dictatorial regime of Perez Jimenez. Shortly after, he continued pursuing his college degree and graduated as a lawyer in 1955 at the Universidad de Santiago de Compostela.

He started parliamentary work in 1947, when he was elected deputy to the Legislative Assembly of Portuguesa State. From 1959 to 1979, in four constitutional periods he attended Congress as a deputy or senator representing Lara and Portuguesa. In March 12, 1979, he became the President of Venezuela after his election on December 3, 1978.

Presidency

Luis Herrera won the December 1978 presidential elections for COPEI, replacing the social democrat Carlos Andrés Pérez of the Democratic Action (AD) party, who had nationalised the oil industry at the height of the boom in 1975. Oil revenues continued to rise during the early years of Herrera's presidency. Herrera had a dirigiste view of the Government's economic role, which involved channelling public funds into agricultural and industrial projects, paying generous subsidies and controlling the prices of many goods. His Government continued President Pérez's policy of borrowing on a world market awash with petrodollars, and by the early 1980s Venezuela owed the banks more than $20 billion. The Government's tacit assumption was that oil prices would remain high forever, and would sustain high levels of public and private consumption.

Luis Herrera developed a program of cultural development and reformed the education program, implementing the common basic cycle of nine years. He also tried to make adjustments to the democratic system. In regard to economics, he began with the policy of liberalisation of prices and at the end of his mandate introduced a series of exchange measures with dramatic results. The Venezuelan bolívar had been pegged at 4.30 to the dollar, but ended up something more than 15 bolivars by unit (Black Friday, February 18, 1983) - this produced a misalignment in the national economy. This was apparently the result of a “computational error” at the Central bank of Venezuela, declaring “collapsed” the international reserves.

Moved in part by territorial claims, Herrera developed a muscular foreign policy. He signed an agreement with Mexico in 1980 to jointly provide Central American and Caribbean countries with a steady flow of oil, a precursor of Hugo Chávez’s wide-reaching oil diplomacy in the developing world. In 1982 Luis Herrera sided with Argentina in its war with Britain over the Falklands, adroitly exploiting anti-British and anti-American sentiment to boost his flagging popularity. His support for Argentina came while he was asserting Venezuela’s longstanding claim to more than half of neighboring Guyana, a former British colony.

Later life

By the time Herrera's term ended, the economy was in meltdown, poverty and hardship were widespread and the voters turned on the ruling Christian Democrat, ejecting him from office in the December 1983 elections. After the end of his presidency Herrera remained influential in the Copei party, becoming its president in 1995.

In 2001 Herrera made headlines when gunmen stole his car . Afterward, he could be seen on foot wearing old clothes and carrying his own groceries. He underwent surgery for two years for an abdominal aneurysm that led to a kidney infection and other complications. By the time he died, he was already retired from Venezuelan politics. Luis Herrera is survived by his wife Betty Urdaneta and three children.

References

* [http://www.gobiernoenlinea.gob.ve/venezuela/perfil_presidente37.html Luis Herrera Campins] — Official biography (but rather biased, based on historical view of current Venezuelan administration)
* [http://www.efemeridesvenezolanas.com/html/campins.htm Luis Herrera Campins]
* [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article2864910.ece Obituary in "The Times", 14 November 2007]
* [http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/11/09/america/LA-GEN-Venezuela-Obit-Herrera.php Obituary] from the "International Herald Tribune"