Rafael Caldera

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Template:Venezuelan presidents infobox Rafael Caldera Rodríguez (born 24 January, 1916) was president of Venezuela from 1969 to 1974 and again from 1994 to 1999.

Caldera taught sociology and law at various universities before entering politics. He was a founding member of COPEI, Venezuela's Christian Democratic party. He first ran for president unsuccessfully in 1946 and tried again every time it was possible until finally succeeding in 1968, winning by a relatively scant 50,000 votes against a recently divided Acción Democrática party. When he was sworn into office in 1969, it marked the first peaceful transfer of power from one party to another in Venezuela's history. During his first presidency, Caldera was able to pacify the country by granting an amnesty that allowed guerrilla fighters, who had been in clandestinity for almost a decade, to reincorporate to society and participate in politics.

In 1993, Caldera split from COPEI, the party he had founded, to form a new political party, Convergencia, which, through a coalition of many small leftist parties, raised Caldera to the presidency in December 1993. This was a fatal blow to the traditional parties which, leaderless and demoralized, garnered few votes in the election.

He won a very narrow victory in that year's presidential election. During his second presidential period, he pardoned Hugo Chávez, who would eventually succeed him in 1999. For this he betrayed his fellow party members and is the sole cause for the current situation in the countryCaldera is a leading student of 19th-Century humanist and educator Andrés Bello and has authored multiple books on politics, literature and Christian Democracy. He is also a member of the Venezuelan Academy of the Language. As such, one of his achievements is the acceptance of millardo ("milliard", 10 ⁹) by the Royal Spanish Academy in 1995 as an alternative to mil millones.

He is married to Alicia Pietri Montemayor, with whom he has 6 children, Mireya, Juan José, Rafael Tomás, Alicia Helena, Cecilia and Andrés Antonio Caldera Pietri.

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