SAN LUIS POTOSÍ, Mexico.- The recent events in Venezuelawhere opposition candidate Edmundo González led the polls but Nicolás Maduro was awarded the victory after an election full of irregularities, recalls one of the most momentous events that demonstrated that it is possible to see a dictatorship fall.
With a government in absolute control over electoral institutions, which allow it to flagrantly violate the constitution to claim victory, little could be done about it. But the facts from 1957 show that change is possible.
General Marcos Pérez Jiménez had participated in the coup d’état in Venezuela in 1948 and was responsible for interrupting the democratic experiment that the country was experiencing, lasting barely nine months with the government of Rómulo Gallegos in 1947.
Perez served as president de facto of Venezuela since December 2, 1952, and its period of supposed “constitutional government” ended in 1957. Therefore new elections had to be held.
Despite this, the dictatorship itself organized a Supreme Electoral Council and called on Venezuelans over eighteen years of age and foreigners who had resided in the country for more than two years to vote in a plebiscite to determine whether they agreed to re-elect General Pérez.
Plebiscite
The plebiscite was illegal and violated the provisions of the Constitution adopted by the regime in 1953.
On December 15, 1957, elections were held in Venezuela with the purpose of granting him a new five-year term (1958-1963) or revoking Pérez Jiménez’s mandate.
The voting system for the plebiscite was not even secret; public employees were explicitly threatened with dismissal if they did not show up at the office with the “No” ballot, proving that they had placed the “Yes” ballot, in favor of the regime, in the ballot box.
The government, according to official results, “won,” with a victory of 86.7%. However, less than six weeks later, the dictator Pérez Jiménez had fled the country, his regime in ruins.
The then ruler had proposed unacceptable voting conditions to guarantee his victory.
The controversial results of December 1957 contributed significantly to accelerating the end of the dictatorship on January 23, 1958.
Popular discontent
By 1957, the resistance movement against the dictatorship included clandestine fighters from AD and the Communist Party, but also leaders of the Committee for Independent Electoral Political Organization (COPEI) and the Democratic Republican Union (URD). They had all united for a common cause: to overthrow Pérez.
In one of the most prominent events of opposition to the tyranny, on November 21, at the headquarters of the Andrés Bello Catholic University, the students burned the Electoral Law, which was fraudulent, a copy of the newspaper The Heraldand a portrait of Pérez Jiménez.
In addition, officers of the Armed Forces and other national opinion groups opposed to the dictatorship had already spoken out.
The end of the dictatorship
On January 1, 1958, a group of soldiers, led by Colonel Hugo Trejo, rose up in Maracay with the support of the air force.
Although they failed, many consolidated contacts with civil resistance groups to carry out protest and rebellion actions in the streets.
After 22 days of demonstrations, workers’ strikes and student strikes, another uprising took place in the early hours of 23 January.
It was then that the military high command withdrew support for Pérez Jiménez and forced him to leave the Miraflores Palace, after which the general fled to the Dominican Republic aboard the presidential plane, known as “The Sacred Cow.”
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