Dissolution of the Congress of the United States of Venezuela

The dissolution of Congress occurred during the dictatorship of Carlos Delgado Chalbaud.

The dissolution of the Congress of the United States of Venezuela by decree on December 4, 1948, following the Venezuelan coup d'état of that year, was initially announced as provisional but was later made permanent until 1952. This significant historical event marked the end of the democratic project known as the Trienio Adeco under the presidency of Rómulo Gallegos. State legislative assemblies and municipal councils were also dissolved, all of which were fundamental to the establishment of the military dictatorship led by Carlos Delgado Chalbaud and under the influence of Marcos Pérez Jiménez.

History

The Congress had been elected in 1947 and was in its first legislature; it was represented by an absolute majority of the Democratic Action (AD) party, with representatives from the parties Comité de Organización Política Electoral Independiente (Copei), Democratic Republican Union (URD), the Communist Party (PCV), and Unión Federal Republicana. Three days after its closure, AD was outlawed, and the Junta claimed that the party sought to maintain power by force; its parliamentarians were persecuted, forcing them into resistance, clandestinity, and exile. Subsequently, the Congress was restored in 1952 following the fraudulent election of the National Constituent Assembly that year and was re-established in 1959 under legal and political forms similar to those of the First Legislature after the fall of the Pérez Jiménez dictatorship.