Venezuelan coups d'état

[3] Known by its supporters as the "October Revolution", it was a coup in Venezuela against the government of the president of the republic, Isaías Medina Angarita, carried out by a coalition of the Armed Forces and the Democratic Action political party, resulting in the arrival to the power of Rómulo Betancourt.

One of the most controversial aspects of the events of 1945 was the title of "Revolution" with which the members of Democratic Action baptized what was nothing more than a civic-military coup d'état, whose main leaders were Rómulo Betancourt and Marcos Pérez Jiménez.

Among the raised officers who commanded this maneuver were, mainly, four army lieutenant colonels: Hugo Chávez, Francisco Arias Cárdenas, Yoel Acosta Chirinos and Jesús Urdaneta.

The most prominent names in this attempt were Hernán Grüber Odremán, Luis Enrique Cabrera Aguirre, Francisco Visconti Osorio, and the Bandera Roja and Tercer Camino political parties.

[6] A general civic strike lasting more than three days, called by union and business organizations opposed to the government, was carried out throughout the country, in response to the deteriorating economic situation; in which there were international reserves of 10 billion dollars, a 22% cut in public spending and a 20% devaluation of the currency, plus the removal of the President of the state oil company PDVSA by Hugo Chávez and a call by Pedro Luis Soto, Colonel of Aviation, to the Armed Forces to "save democracy that is being threatened by Hugo Chávez"; were the antecedents prior to the coup d'état.

On the afternoon of the 12th, the president of the federation of business associations, Pedro Carmona Estanga, supported by the insurgent military and various sectors of civil society, assumed the presidency through a controversial and illegal decree that dismissed all executive officials that made up the national public powers (TSJ, CNE, National Assembly of Venezuela, Prosecutor's Office, Ombudsman, Comptroller's Office, Ministries) and local (mayors, governors, deputies to municipal and state parliaments) from their positions and also allowed the provisional government to appoint the new members of all the previous positions; It also changed the name of the country from "Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela" to "Republic of Venezuela" and committed the provisional government to convene free, secret and universal general elections for all elected positions and also promised to hand over power to the new government.

The decree was called the Act of Constitution of the Government of Democratic Transition and National Unity, which was signed by 400 people who were present at the Miraflores Palace, and supported more by the insurgent military.

The then-attorney general of the Republic, Isaías Rodríguez, declared that a coup d'état has occurred since, among other things, there was no physical evidence of his resignation, however the national television stations took it off the air.

About eight months later, the Supreme Court of Justice of Venezuela ruled that what had happened was not a "coup d'état" but a "power vacuum", based on what was previously affirmed by the highest military authority in the country, General-in-Chief Lucas Rincón Romero, affected by the Chávez government.

For this reason, the masterminds of said military uprising were neither imprisoned nor sentenced, nor were the civilians who had supported them, except for those who had committed crimes against officials of the temporarily deposed government or against public property or private.