MIAMI — Former Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez, whose popularity soared with his country’s oil-based economy but who later faced riots, a severe economic downturn and impeachment, died Saturday in Miami, his family said.
The 88-year-old Perez’s daughter, Maria Francia Perez, said her father died in a Miami-area hospital.
“He was happy and well when he awoke this morning. Suddenly, he had difficulty breathing,” she told The Associated Press by telephone.
Venezuelan TV channel Globovision had quoted the daughter initially in reporting Perez had suffered a heart attack, but she denied that to AP, citing “respiratory failure.”
In the final years of his life, Perez came to personify the old guard political establishment bitterly opposed by current President Hugo Chavez. Perez survived two coup attempts in 1992, the first led by Chavez, then a young army lieutenant colonel.
In recent years, Perez lived in Miami while the Venezuelan government demanded he be turned over to stand trial for his role in quelling bloody 1989 riots. Perez — who governed Venezuela in 1974-79 and again in 1989-93 — denied wrongdoing.
His other daughter, Cecilia Victoria Perez, told AP late Saturday that a funeral service and burial are being planned in South Florida.
Perez won praise by nationalizing Venezuela’s oil industry, paying off foreign oil companies and capitalizing on a period of prosperity that allowed his government to build subway lines, bankroll new social programs and set up state-run companies in areas from steel to electricity.
Venezuelans elected him for a second time in 1988, hoping for a return to good times after a decade of economic decline.
But his popularity plunged when he tried to push through an economic austerity program, including increasing the subsidized prices of gasoline. Anger among the poor boiled over in the 1989 riots and more than 300 people were killed in the unrest known as the “Caracazo.” Some activists put the death toll much higher.
