First presidency of Carlos Andrés Pérez

Youthful and energetic, Perez ran a vibrant and triumphalist campaign, one of the first to use the services of American advertising gurus and political consultants in the country's history.

Many people were skeptical that Venezuelans would choose such a controversial figure as Pérez, but when the results were in they showed he had won a clear a victory, but, what was even more important, AD had an absolute majority in Congress: the pardo masses were still adecos to the core (1973).

[1] One of the most radical aspects of Pérez's program for government was the notion that petroleum oil was a tool for under-developed nations like Venezuela to attain first world status and usher a fairer, more equitable international order.

His measures to protect the environment and foster sustainable development earned him the Earth Care award in 1975, the first time a Latin American leader had received this recognition.

Corruption went up incalculably, and there was even a case in which Venezuela bought a meat-freezing ship named the Sierra Nevada, which was anchored to store part of the immense quantity of imports that were being handled.

Crime in the streets was another by-product of the Venezuelan oil economy, although this could only partially be blamed on the new riches — obviously, with so much spending going on, thugs had easy marks anywhere — but mainly on the thousands of guns that had been put into circulation during the leftist insurgency that Pérez battled.

Since by that time Venezuela was equipped to manage it, not much harm was done by that in itself, but with all the new collaterals that the government could offer, Pérez, after having gone through the "surplus" for investments, started taking out international loans and not small ones but sizable ones.

Pérez "statized" the Venezuelan economy to such a degree that the load of paperwork to open a business was so heavy that a service branch was created called "permisologia" (approximately, the "science" of permits), to which businessmen had to recur as a matter of course if they wanted to get the necessary bureaucratic approval.

Leftists were in a dazzled quandary because, on one hand, they disliked Pérez, but, on the other, they couldn’t complain about the state's interference because that was part of their own social and economic agenda.

One thing that can be credited to Pérez is that he introduced legislation to protect the environment, whereas Caldera had tried to build a road into the vast southern area of Venezuela known as Amazonas, which his government wanted to settle and exploit.

He opposed the Somoza and Pinochet dictatorships and played a crucial role in the finalizing of the agreement for the transfer of the Panama Canal from American to Panamanian control.

In addition, there were allegations of corruption and trafficking of influence, often involving members of Pérez's intimate circle or financiers and businessmen who donated to his campaign.

A well-publicized rift with his former mentor Rómulo Betancourt and disgruntled members of AD all pointed to the fading of Pérez's political standing.

And whilst per capita income had increased and prosperity was evident in Caracas and other major cities, the country was also more expensive and a significant minority of Venezuelans were still mired in poverty.