Carlos Ramírez MacGregor

Who was Carlos Ramírez MacGregor?

Carlos Ramírez MacGregor was a Venezuelan lawyer, politician, newspaperman, and diplomat. He obtained a doctorate in law at the University of Madrid, Spain.

When he returned to his country, Venezuela was still being ruled by the dictator Juan Vicente Gómez. When Gomez died, he was named labor inspector for Zulia state, center of the oil industry, by the government of Eleazar López Contreras. As such, he prepared a report on working conditions that was influential in the substantial betterment of workers’ living conditions by the government and the oil companies.

He was congressman seven times spanning a period of over three decades. During his first nomination to Congress, he distinguished himself by defending the economic interests of his state at the time when imports from the USA were restricted because of World War II.

Together with politicians such as Alfredo Tarre Murzi and Arturo Uslar Pietri, he was one of the founders of the Venezuelan Democratic Party, created to support the administration of president Isaias Medina Angarita. When this government was overthrown in the Revolution of October 1945, Ramírez MacGregor was briefly jailed by the junta, formed by Accion Democratica party and military officers, that ruled the country until 1948.