1936 Venezuelan presidential election

General Juan Vicente Gómez, who had ruled Venezuela as president intermittently since 19 December 1908, died on 17 December 1935.^[1] Although ruled the country in authoritarian manner, Gómez also achieved national modernization in different areas: He created the country's first airliner (Aeropostal Alas de Venezuela), commissioned the construction of the first Venezuelan airports, building of bridges, customs buildings, the first passenger terminals of extra-urban bus lines, as well as the famous Transandean Highway. Gómez also modernized, professionalized and institutionalized the National Armed Forces, which still retains the Gomezist structure.^[2]

After the death of Gómez, the Minister of War and Navy, General Eleazar López Contreras, managed to quell a conspiracy of the Gómez's family members to obtain and perpetuate themselves in power, for which the Cabinet of Venezuela appointed him as provisional president until the holding of elections.^[3]

For these elections, the presidential candidates were the following:

• Eleazar López Contreras, military officer and politician from Queniquea, who had served as Minister of War and Navy under Gómez since 1931 and provisional president since 1935, period in which a process of democratic transition began in Venezuela.
• Néstor Luis Pérez [es], lawyer and politician from Maracaibo, activist opposed to the Gómez's government, who was also imprisoned in the San Carlos Prison.^[4]