Teodoro Petkoff Malec was a Venezuelan politician, guerrilla, economist and journalist. One of Venezuela's most prominent politicians on the left, Petkoff began as a communist but gravitated toward liberalism in the 1990s. As Minister of Planning, he oversaw President Rafael Caldera's adoption of neoliberal economic policies in the mid-1990s. He was a prominent critic of President Hugo Chávez and was a candidate to run against him in the 2006 presidential election until he dropped out four months before the vote to support Manuel Rosales. Petkoff launched the newspaper Tal Cual in 2000 and remained its editor until his death in 2018.
In the second government of Rafael Caldera, MAS was in coalition with the centrist National Convergence party of Caldera, along with other left-wing parties such as the Communist Party of Venezuela and the MEP, and other right-wing parties as the National Movement of Integration. Petkoff served as Minister of the Central Office of Coordination and Planning, directing the government's economic policies. From Cordiplan, Petkoff managed the Venezuela Agenda, a neo-liberal government program for reducing the size of the public administration, controlling inflation and stopping the currency devaluation, while administering social programs aimed at improving the population's nutritional health and providing "children-mother" services for the poorest.
Opponent of Hugo Chávez
In 1998, Petkoff left the MAS because he was against its support of Hugo Chávez's candidacy in the 1998 Presidential election. He left the political world and became a journalist, working as a director of El Mundo. Afterward, he founded his own newspaper, Tal Cual. Tal Cual has been outspoken in its criticism of both Chavismo and those who supported the 2002 coup attempt against Chávez. Petkoff wrote several political books. In 2005 he published The Two Lefts where he analyzed the resurgence of left-wing politics in Latin America. Petkoff argued that there was a sharp difference between the governments of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Néstor Kirchner, and Ricardo Lagos, compared to the governments of Chávez and Castro, which he characterises as similar. The main ideas can be read in an article published in the journal New Society in Spanish. On 21 April 2006, after rumours indicating that a number of intellectuals and middle-class liberal activists had asked him to run in the 2006 Presidential election, Teodoro Petkoff launched his campaign to be the next president of Venezuela. In a short televised message he explained his reasons and asked Venezuelans to follow his lead in the construction of what he described as a new, better Venezuela. On 4 August 2006, Petkoff dropped out of the presidential race. Five days after dropping out of the race, he endorsed Manuel Rosales, former governor of Zulia State, for the presidency. In July 2008 the Inter-American Dialogue published a paper by Petkoff about Venezuela under Chávez, saying “Chávez’s Venezuela is a Bonapartist democracy of sorts, a one-of-a-kind 'dictatorship.' He aims to make the armed forces the institutional base of his power.” In an October 2012 interview, Petkoff noted that while Venezuela under Chávez retained certain democratic institutions, such as political parties and the electoral process, he described other aspects of democracy, such as “the full exercise of freedom of expression,” as being “very beleaguered” under Chávez. He said that “Chávez has more fascist than socialist elements, unless we speak of Stalinism: the cult of violence and death, contempt for opponents, singing to the past, and so on.”
Personal life
On 12 May 2012, Petkoff and his wife were mugged by an armed man on a motorcycle after leaving a Caracas restaurant. In December 2012, while on the island of Margarita, Petkoff suffered a fall and sustained injuries that required surgery. Petkoff died on 31 October 2018.
Works
"Checoslovaquia: El Socialismo como problema".
"¿Socialismo para Venezuela?".
"Razón y pasión del socialismo: el tema socialista en Venezuela"
"Proceso a la izquierda: O de la falsa conducta revolucionaria."
"Del optimismo de la voluntad: Escritos políticos"
