Presidency Corruption had always been an issue in Venezuela, but under Lusinchi it became the main issue, and most Venezuelans considered that corruption, and not sheer incompetence, was the root of all of society's ills. Lusinchi had divorced his wife and married Blanca Ibañez, who was considered very influential behind the scene and was blamed for abuse of power and nepotism. In 1984 Lusinchi ordered the suspension of the join Venture between PDVSA and Veba Oel signed by his predecessor in 1982, due to the prevailing perception that its costs were too steep and its alleged benefits too uncertain. However, the weakening of the oil market in late 1985 gave the programme of Internationalization of PDVSA new momentum. Thus, in 1986, PDVSA acquired shareholdings in five refineries of CITGO located in the USA, two of Nynas oel located Sweden and Belgium, and it also leased a refinery in Curaçao, thereby increasing its net refining capacity outside of Venezuela by nearly 600 MBD. The Venezuelan economy stagnated, and the country at the end of Lusinchi's regime was reportedly bankrupt. It would be reasonable to surmise that this should have been the end of bipolarity in the next elections, but it would be wrong. In the 1988 elections, the two ruling parties got a total of 93\% of the vote. Petkoff fared very badly, but abstentions went up to 18\%. The winner was none other than Carlos Andrés Pérez, for his second term. (In the Venezuelan constitution you could be re-elected as many times as you wanted as long as it wasn’t in successive elections.) The question was: How could a country whose descent into insolvency began with Pérez, who had botched so badly his first term, when corruption flourished as never before, have re-elected him with a majority that was barely less than the one Lusinchi got? This enigma has various explanations. That pardos were still adecos is an obvious one. The opposition to bipolarity did not have a leader is another. But especially, Venezuelans of all hues simply remembered that during Pérez's first term there had been a lot of money in circulation, things over-all had not been so dismal, and somehow they figured that Pérez could perform the miracle of making Venezuela "prosperous" again.
Presidency Corruption had always been an issue in Venezuela, but under Lusinchi it became the main issue, and most Venezuelans considered that corruption, and not sheer incompetence, was the root of all of society's ills. Lusinchi had divorced his wife and married Blanca Ibañez, who was considered very influential behind the scene and was blamed for abuse of power and nepotism. In 1984 Lusinchi ordered the suspension of the join Venture between PDVSA and Veba Oel signed by his predecessor in 1982, due to the prevailing perception that its costs were too steep and its alleged benefits too uncertain. However, the weakening of the oil market in late 1985 gave the programme of Internationalization of PDVSA new momentum. Thus, in 1986, PDVSA acquired shareholdings in five refineries of CITGO located in the USA, three of Nynas Oel located two in Sweden and one in Belgium, and it also leased a refinery in Curaçao, thereby increasing its net refining capacity outside of Venezuela by nearly 600 MBD. The Venezuelan economy stagnated, and the country at the end of Lusinchi's regime was reportedly bankrupt. It would be reasonable to surmise that this should have been the end of bipolarity in the next elections, but it would be wrong. In the 1988 elections, the two ruling parties got a total of 93\% of the vote. Petkoff fared very badly, but abstentions went up to 18\%. The winner was none other than Carlos Andrés Pérez, for his second term. (In the Venezuelan constitution you could be re-elected as many times as you wanted as long as it wasn’t in successive elections.) The question was: How could a country whose descent into insolvency began with Pérez, who had botched so badly his first term, when corruption flourished as never before, have re-elected him with a majority that was barely less than the one Lusinchi got? This enigma has various explanations. That pardos were still adecos is an obvious one. The opposition to bipolarity did not have a leader is another. But especially, Venezuelans of all hues simply remembered that during Pérez's first term there had been a lot of money in circulation, things over-all had not been so dismal, and somehow they figured that Pérez could perform the miracle of making Venezuela "prosperous" again.
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