page_title: El Trienio Adeco
section_title: 1945 coup d'etat
hierarchical_section_title: El Trienio Adeco / 1945 coup d'etat
caption_attribution_description: English: Members of the Revolutionary Government Junta of Venezuela, from left to right: Mario Ricardo Vargas, Raúl Leoni, Valmore Rodríguez, Rómulo Betancourt, Carlos Delgado Chalbaud, Edmundo Fernández and Gonzalo Barrios. Miraflores Palace, 1945. Español: Miembros del Junta Revolucionaria de Gobierno, de la izquierda a la derecha: Mario Ricardo Vargas, Raúl Leoni, Valmore Rodríguez, Rómulo Betancourt, Carlos Delgado Chalbaud, Edmundo Fernández y Gonzalo Barrios. Palacio de Miraflores, 1945.
context_page_description: El Trienio Adeco was a three-year period in Venezuelan history, from 1945 to 1948, under the government of the popular party Democratic Action. The party gained office via the 1945 Venezuelan coup d'état against President Isaías Medina Angarita, and held the first democratic elections in Venezuelan history, beginning with the 1946 Venezuelan Constituent Assembly election. The 1947 Venezuelan general election saw Democratic Action formally elected to office, but it was removed from office shortly after in the 1948 Venezuelan coup d'état.
context_section_description: As the 1945 elections approached, Betancourt, who knew how large his national political base was now, accepted Medina's invitation to participate in them on the tacit understanding that the official candidate, Diogenes Escalante, would win with the support of Acción Democrática (AD), as Betancourt's party had been named. In exchange, the following elections would be totally democratic.
  Escalante was party to this agreement, but on his return to Venezuela from Washington, where he was ambassador, to participate in his own election, he started mumbling and making incoherent statements. The man was insane being forced to abandon politics and spend the rest of his life in a psychiatric center in Miami, Florida. President Medina then made a mistake, to choose a substitute for Escalante without consulting AD. He proposed to his Minister of Agriculture, Angel Biagini, but this one did not count on the favor of Betancourt, and the route of Coup d'etat was activated again.  Betancourt was incensed and so it was that the strongest political party in Venezuela and the military conspirators, none of which had a rank higher than major, made a deal whose consequences were to be long-lasting.
  In October 1945, the military declared itself in open rebellion in Caracas and Betancourt called on the people to stage a civilian uprising. Medina resigned, but it is generally acknowledged that the army, except for the rebels, was on his side and could have put down the rebellion and arrest the insubordinate officers. The army was the making of Gomez and Lopez Contreras and even Medina and was a disciplined institution. However, the long history of violence in Venezuelan politics during the previous century made Medina not want a bloody civil war on his hands.
caption: Members of the Revolutionary Government Junta, from left to right: Mario Ricardo Vargas, Raúl Leoni, Valmore Rodríguez, Rómulo Betancourt, Carlos Delgado Chalbaud, Edmundo Fernández and Gonzalo Barrios. Miraflores Palace, 1945
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