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Miscalculation. Pérez Jiménez' next planned move was to get himself elected President. An official political party was organized. With A.D. outlawed, the opposition was divided between a Catholic conservative group and a mildly left-of-center party. Registrations showed that the government party outnumbered the combined opposition 1,200,000 to 800,000.
Pérez Jiménez' advisers calculated that he could win an unrigged election—and even the opposition agreed with them.
But few Latin American strongmen can count on much popular support. The first telegraphed election-night returns at Caracas' Miraflores Palace heralded the bad news: an apparent ten-to-one defeat for the Pérez Jiménezrez slate. The strongman was bitterly disappointed, but his wife, Pedro Estrada and others steadied him, arguing glibly that the army, the real custodian of power, still had to decide whether the results were "acceptable." Newspapers were ordered to wait for the full official count; foreign news cables were bottled up. Two days later it was blandly announced that the government party had won after all. Now each Dec. 2 is celebrated by opening hundreds of public works, and Venezuela is dotted with projects named in honor of the date, e.g., San Cristóbal's Gimnasio 2 de Diciembre.
The election established a constituent assembly that drafted a new constitution and voted Pérez Jiménez into office, a legal President at last.
"There Must Be a Leader." As South America's youngest chief executive, Pérez Jiménez has conquered much of his early, unconfident stiffness and has warmed to his job with relish. "P.J.," as he is known to Caracas' English-speaking colony, demands plenty of action, but he rarely needs or wants suggestions from his cabinet. He treats the ministers as a team of technicians; their two-hour Saturday sessions are brisk and businesslike.
For support, he still relies heavily on an unofficial army council of 38 officers ranking from captain to colonel—many of them co-conspirators in the 1945 revolution and many also from Pérez Jiménez' academy class of '34. To reward this loyal backing, Pérez Jiménez pays the officers well* and provides them with lush perquisites. Nothing in Venezuela—or out of it, for that matter—quite matches the palatial Circulo de las Fuerzas Armadas, the social club for military officers and top government officials. It has a hotel (television in every room), restaurants, bar, cocktail lounge, nightclub, two swimming pools, stable, gymnasium, fencing court, bowling alleys, library and theater. Some notably sumptuous touches: marble floors, blue Polaroid windows, Gobelin tapestries, Sevres vases, Tiffany clocks, a glass-walled conservatory housing a living, blooming chunk of the Venezuelan jungle. To the grander dances at the club, some colonels' wives wear $1,500 Balmain gowns.
"We Still Need Halters." Of his style of rule, Pérez Jiménez said in a recent interview: "I make every effort to give Venezuelans the kind of government best adapted to them. People may call it a dictatorial regime, [but] my country is not ready for the kind of democracy that brings abuses of liberty. We are still in our infant years and we still need halters.