Democratic Action (Venezuela)

Democratic Action
Acción Democrática
President Isabel Carmona de Serra
Vice President Edgar Zambrano
General secretary Henry Ramos Allup
Founder Romulo Betancourt
Founded 13 September 1941 (1941-09-13)
Headquarters La Florida, Caracas, Venezuela
Ideology Venezuelan nationalism,[1][2]
Social democracy,[3][4]
Third Way
Political position Centre[5]
to Centre-left[6]
National affiliation Democratic Unity Roundtable
International affiliation Socialist International
Regional affiliation COPPPAL
Colors      White (official)
Seats in the National Assembly
26 / 167
Governors
0 / 23
Mayors
17 / 337
Website
www.acciondemocratica.org.ve

Democratic Action (Spanish: Acción Democrática, abbreviated as AD) is a Venezuelan centrist political party established in 1941.

The party and its antecedents played an important role in the early years of Venezuelan democracy, and led the government during Venezuela's first democratic period (1945–1948). After an intervening decade of dictatorship (1948–1958) saw AD excluded from power, four presidents came from Acción Democrática from the 1960s to the 1990s. By the end of the 1990s, however, the party's credibility was almost nonexistent, mostly because of the corruption and poverty that Venezuelans experienced during the last two full-term administrations of the party's time in power, namely, those of Jaime Lusinchi (1984–1989) and Carlos Andrés Pérez (1989–1993). The latter president was impeached for corruption in 1993, and spent several years in prison as a result. Since the 1998 election of Hugo Chávez, a range of newer parties (such as A New Era and Justice First) have been more prominent in opposition to Chávez. In the 2015 legislative elections held on 6 December, AD backed the opposition electoral alliance Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) which managed to grasp a supermajority. AD won 26 constituency representatives out of 167 seats in the unicameral National Assembly: It is the second largest opposition party after Justice First. AD General Secretary Henry Ramos Allup is the current President of the National Assembly.

Early years

The party and its antecedents played an important role in the early years of Venezuelan democracy. The Agrupación Revolucionaria de Izquierda (ARDI) was founded in 1931 in Colombia by Rómulo Betancourt and other exile Venezuelans. In 1936 this became the Movimiento de Organización Venezolana (ORVE), which was then dissolved into the Partido Democrático Nacional (PDN). Finally, in 1941, after Isaías Medina Angarita legalized all political parties, Acción Democrática was founded by Betancourt and others. These included Rómulo Gallegos, Andrés Eloy Blanco, Luis Beltrán Prieto, Juan Oropeza, Luis Lander, Raúl Ramos, Medardo Medina, Enrique H. Marín, Rafael Padrón, Fernando Peñalver, Luis Augusto Dubuc, César Hernández, José V. Hernández and Ricardo Montilla. Gallegos was a highly prestigious writer, the author of the iconic novel, Doña Bárbara (1929), among several others, while Andrés Eloy Blanco was a celebrated Venezuelan poet and a witty humoristic writer.

After the October 1945 revolution, Betancourt was President for a time, until Rómulo Gallegos won the Venezuelan presidential election, 1947 (generally believed to be the first free and fair elections in Venezuela). Gallegos governed until overthrown by Marcos Pérez Jiménez in the 1948 Venezuelan coup d'état. The 1945–48 period is known as the trienio. Many of its founders and early members went into exile during the dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez, and returned for the restoration of democracy in 1958.

1958–1993

After the restoration of democracy, Betancourt won the 1958 elections comfortably, and AD joined the 1958 Punto Fijo Pact. The 1963 elections saw a solid victory for Raúl Leoni, and AD also won in 1973 (Carlos Andrés Pérez), 1983 (Jaime Lusinchi), and 1988 (Carlos Andrés Pérez again). From 1958 to 1999 only three presidential elections were lost (to COPEI, in 1968 and 1978) and one of those was only lost due to a major split in AD.

The Punto Fijo Pact collapsed in the early 1990s in the face of a severe economic and political crisis, culminating in the impeachment of the AD president Carlos Andrés Pérez for corruption, and the election in 1993 of former COPEI leader Rafael Caldera on a National Convergence electoral coalition platform. Caldera's failure to resolve the economic crisis created the political environment for the 1998 election of Hugo Chávez.

Splits

The 1968 presidential election was shaped by the split of Democratic Action, with a substantial leftist faction breaking away to form the Movimiento Electoral del Pueblo (MEP). The split happened after Luis Beltrán Prieto Figueroa won the 1967 AD primary election, only to see his nomination overturned by the reformist-social democrat Rómulo Betancourt faction, in favour of Gonzalo Barrios, considering Prieto too far left.[7] Prieto Figueroa, at the time President of the Venezuelan Senate as well as President of AD, split from AD over the affair along with a substantial number of his supporters.[7] The result was that the 1968 election was the first time AD lost power through an election, when COPEI's Rafael Caldera won with less than 30% of the vote, just ahead of AD's Barrios. Prieto Figueroa attained nearly 20%, attaining fourth place behind the Unión Republicana Democrática's Miguel Ángel Burelli Rivas.

An earlier split, in 1960, saw the Revolutionary Left Movement break away from AD. Its engagement in armed struggle against the AD government meant the split posed rather less of an electoral problem than the later MEP split.

In opposition

AD posters during a rally in support of RCTV in 2007

At the 2000 elections for the new National Assembly of Venezuela, the party won 29 out of 165 seats; four additional seats were won by an AD-Copei alliance. At the 2005 legislative elections Democratic Action staged an electoral boycott and consequently did not win any seats. Up to 2005 the party was deeply fragmented and wanted to regain the trust of society and fight the government of Hugo Chávez Frías.

The trade union confederation CTV is closely linked to AD.

Acción Democrática's current Secretary General is Henry Ramos.

AD is a member of the Socialist International,[8] and a member of COPPPAL.[9]

Venezuelan Presidents from AD

PresidentDates in officeForm of entryOccupation
Rómulo Betancourt1945–1948Coup d'étatPolitician
Rómulo Gallegos1948-1948Direct electionsWriter / Novelist
Rómulo Betancourt1959–1964Direct electionsPolitician
Raúl Leoni1964–1969Direct electionsLawyer
Carlos Andrés Pérez1974–1979Direct electionsPolitician
Jaime Lusinchi1984–1989Direct electionsPhysician
Carlos Andrés Pérez1989–1993Direct electionsPolitician
Ramón José Velásquez1993–1994Interim presidentHistorian

References

  1. ↑ Rivas, Darlene (2002), Missionary Capitalist: Nelson Rockefeller in Venezuela, University of North Carolina Press, p. 108
  2. ↑ Derham, Michael (2010), Politics in Venezuela: Explaining Hugo Chávez, Peter Lang, p. 155
  3. ↑ Lamb, Peter; Docherty, James C. (2006), Historical Dictionary or Socialism (Second ed.), Scarecrow Press, p. 100
  4. ↑ Smilde, David (2011), "Introduction: Participation, Politics and Culture – Emerging Fragments of Venezuela's Bolivarian Democracy", Venezuela's Bolivarian Democracy: Participation, Politics, and Culture under Chávez, Duke University Press, p. 5
  5. ↑ Ellner, Steve (2012), "The Heyday of Radical Populism in Venezuela and Its Reappearance", Populism in Latin America (Second ed.), University of Alabama Press, p. 150
  6. ↑ Buckman, Robert T. (2012), The World Today Series, 2012: Latin America, Stryker-Post, p. 366
  7. 1 2 David L. Swanson, Paolo Mancini (1996), Politics, media, and modern democracy: an international study of innovations in electoral campaigning and their consequences, Greenwood Publishing Group. p244
  8. ↑ Socialist International MEMBER PARTIES of the SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL, accessed 10 June 2012
  9. ↑ (in Spanish) COPPPAL, Partidos Miembros Archived 5 June 2014 at the Wayback Machine., accessed 10 June 2012
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