Ex-President Perez dies in Miami

Venezuela's former president Carlos Andres Perez has died suddenly in Miami aged 88. Perez was responsible for nationlising the country's oil industry during the 1970s. He then survived a coup attempt by current president, Hugo Chavez, before being driven out of office on corruption charges. 

Reuters/CAP Press/Handout

His daughter told the Globovision television network, that her father had woken in good spirits on Christmas day, but died unexpectedly from a suspected heart attack later that day.

Perez served twice as Venezuela's president. During his first term, from 1974 to 1979, he oversaw the formation of the state-run Petroleos de Venezuela, which allowed the oil-rich nation to benefit dramatically from the soaring energy prices of the early 1970s.

Just weeks after his victory in the 1988 election for his second term, Perez hammered out a deal with the International Monetary Fund to introduce more free market policies in order to secure a multi-billion dollar loan to help pay down Venezuela's external debt. After he was sworn in on February 1989, there were massive street riots to protest the economic reforms.

The uprising, known as Caracazo, was the strongest anti-government protest in modern Venezulan history. It was repressed by force killing 276 people.

In 1992, Hugo Chavez, then a little-knpwn army lieutenant colonel, led an unsuccessful military coup several years before being democratically elected to lead the country.

Perez survived another coup attempt later than year, but in March 1993, the attorney general called on the Supreme Court to impeach the president for misappropriation and embezzlement of some 17 million dollars.

In 2005, Caracas asked Washington to extradite Perez on charges related to the deaths during the Caracaza.