Democratic Action - 1958 - 1993

1993

After the restoration of democracy, Betancourt won the Venezuelan presidential election, 1958 comfortably, and AD joined the 1958 Punto Fijo Pact. The 1963 election saw a solid victory for Raúl Leoni, and AD also won in 1973 (Carlos Andrés Pérez), in 1983 (Jaime Lusinchi), and in 1988 (Carlos Andrés Pérez again). From 1958 to 1993 only two presidential elections were lost (to COPEI, in 1978 and in 1968) 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.