Rangel denounced the abuses of the adeco governments of Betancourt and Leoni—he accused them of allowing the secret police and the army to torture detainees—and he was the MAS presidential candidate in 1973 and 1978, both times doing badly.

Much of the campaign was taken up by an "underground" debate about Lusinchi's mistress, Blanca Ibañez, and adecos insisted that his legal wife had simply "to bite the bullet".

When the results were in, bipolarity worked and the adecos proved that they still had the pardos on their side by garnering 56% of the vote, the highest margin ever in a Venezuelan election.

Lusinchi had divorced his wife and married Blanca Ibañez, who was considered very influential behind the scene and was blamed for abuse of power and nepotism.

The question was: How could a country whose descent into insolvency began with Pérez, who had botched so badly his first term, when corruption flourished as never before, have re-elected him with a majority that was barely less than the one Lusinchi got?