Background
Luis Herrera Campins was born in Acarigua on 4 May 1925.
government official politician president
Luis Herrera Campins was born in Acarigua on 4 May 1925.
He received his law degree at Santiago de Compostella University in Spain in 1954.
With the establishment of the Christian Social Copei Party under the leadership of Rafael Caldera Rodriguez, Herrera Campins became the head of its youth group.
After the overthrow of the Acción Democrática government in 1948, Luis Herrera Campins went abroad. He became the principal spokesman for exiled members of Copei. He represented Copei at the First World Conference of Christian Democratic Parties in 1956.
With the overthrow of Marcos Pérez Jiménez dictatorship in January 1958, Herrera Campins returned to Venezuela. He served in the Chamber of Deputies from 1959 to 1964, and was a senator until his election as president. He was president of the Copei Party in 1961, president of the parliamentary bloc of his party from 1963 to 1970, and between 1969 and 1977 was secretary general of the Latin American Congress of Christian Democratic Organizations.
Herrera Campins won a bitter contest for the Copei nomination for president in 1978. He was victorious in the election.
He came to power when world oil prices were beginning to drop, and his regime was faced with a severe economic crisis, marked by substantial inflation, growing unemployment, and a rapidly mounting foreign debt. Congress was controlled by the Opposition, and there was substantial dissidence within the Copei Party. As a consequence. President Herrera Campins appeared to be a weak and relatively ineffective leader. When ex-President Rafael Caldera ran again, he was substantially defeated by Acción Democrática candidate Jaime Lusinchi.
