Obituary - Teodoro Petkoff, Communist guerrilla and journalist

Died: October 31, 2018

TEODORO Petkoff, who has died aged 86, was a giant of Venezuelan politics who led a band of communist guerrillas before becoming a critic of socialist president Hugo Chavez.

Despite the Communism of his youth, he won the praise of Wall Street in a top government post and then launched a newspaper that fearlessly attacked Mr Chavez.

Petkoff was celebrated as a critical thinker who maintained his political independence within an opposition movement weakened by cronyism and infighting.

He promoted conservative economic policies, which Latin American leftists considered a betrayal.

"Teodoro Petkoff was a mentor to at least three generations of Venezuelans. I count myself among them," playwright, essayist and former Tal Cual columnist Ibsen Martinez said. "He instilled in us the idea that democracy and tolerance ... are the essence of social justice."

Petkoff's life story reads more like a Hollywood movie script, marked by daring prison escapes, bank heists and failed presidential campaigns in the tumultuous South American petro state.

Born to a Bulgarian father and Polish mother of Jewish origin who immigrated to Venezuela, Petkoff's political rise began as a student leader. He then joined the Communist Party and took up arms in the 1950s against dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez.

Petkoff spent three years in prison and escaped twice, once by slipping through a tunnel onto the streets of Caracas, where large crowds of costumed Carnival-goers provided ample cover.

In the second escape, he vomited blood that he had swallowed to feign illness and gained access to a prison hospital, where he climbed down by rope from a seventh-story window.

Petkoff continued with the armed struggle against a US-backed government that replaced Perez Jimenez in 1958. The rebels robbed banks, kidnapped businessmen and fought at times with soldiers.

He turned to journalism in the mid-1960s, writing for the Communist Party's newspaper in Caracas. But the struggle faded in the 1970s as then-president Rafael Caldera offered amnesty to the last remaining rebels.

By then, Petkoff had grown disillusioned with the Soviet model, which he saw as increasingly authoritarian.

Together with other former rebels, he formed the left-leading Movement Toward Socialism and was elected to the Senate. He ran for the presidency twice in the 1980s, and was well defeated both times.

He joined the government in the late 1990s when Caldera in his second term tapped the former rebel as planning minister during an economic crisis.

Petkoff's performance won praise on Wall Street for privatising state-run companies and cutting subsidies while gradually reducing the state's role in the economy.

His wit was put on display launching Tal Cual in 2000 during the rise of Hugo Chavez's socialist movement, which maintains power today. The newspaper's inaugural front page boldly called out to the charismatic president with the headline: "Hola, Hugo."

Tal Cual's edgy stories and cutting opinion pieces over the years have drawn blowback from the government, including a defamation lawsuit filed by socialist party boss Diosdado Cabello, then president of the National Assembly. It was later dropped.

Petkoff's third presidential bid came in 2006 in a challenge to Chavez, who ultimately won a second six-year term.

Petkoff was the greatest democrat of the left in Latin America, said Enrique Krause, a Mexican historian and critic of current Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Luis Almagro, secretary general of the Organisation of American States, said Petkoff's death was a loss that extended beyond Venezuela.

"He leaves Venezuela and the region without a mandate on social commitment, political coherence and defence of democratic values," Almagro said. "His struggle for freedom of expression and defence of human rights will never be forgotten."