Ex-Venezuelan president dies

FORMER President Carlos Andres Perez, whose popularity soared with Venezuela’s oil-based economy but who later faced riots, a severe economic downturn and impeachment, has died in Miami, Florida, from a heart attack, aged 88.

In the final years of his life Perez came to personify the old guard Venezuelan political establishment bitterly opposed by the current president, Hugo Chavez.

He survived two coup attempts in 1992, the first of which was led by Chavez, then a young army lieutenant colonel.