Francisco Morales Bermúdez
Francisco Remigio Morales Bermúdez Cerruti (4 October 1921 – 14 July 2022) was a Peruvian politician and general who was the de facto[1] President of Peru (2nd President of the Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces) between 1975 and 1980, after deposing his predecessor, General Juan Velasco.[2][3] His grandfather and all his original family were from the old Peruvian department of Tarapacá, which is now part of Chile. Unable to control the political and economic troubles that the nation faced, he was forced to return power to civilian rule, marking the end of the Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces installed by a coup d'état in 1968.
In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Morales Bermúdez and the second or maternal family name is Cerruti.
Francisco Morales Bermúdez
- Oscar Vargas Prieto
- Jorge Fernández Maldonado
- Guillermo Arbulú Galliani
- Óscar Molina Pallochia
- Pedro Richter Prada
Fernando Belaúnde
(as constitutional president, military government collapse)
Ángel Valdivia Morriberon (Minister of Finance and Commerce)
Guillermo Marcó del Pont
14 July 2022 (aged 100)
Miraflores, Lima, Peru
-
Rosa Pedraglio(m. 1942; died 1998)
-
Alicia Saffer Michaelsen(m. 1999)
5
Remigio Morales Bermúdez (grandfather)
1941–1980
General
Early years[edit]
Morales Bermúdez was born in Lima on 4 October 1921.[4] He was the son of Army Colonel Remigio Morales Bermúdez and grandson of ex-President Remigio Morales Bermúdez. He received most of his education at Lima's Colegio de la Inmaculada. In 1939, he was accepted into the Escuela Militar de Chorrillos (Chorrillos Military School). After his graduation, he was an important member of the Centro de Altos Estudios Militares (Center for Advanced Military Studies).
Political career[edit]
Morales Bermúdez achieved the rank of brigadier general and was appointed to his first political post in 1968 as Minister of Economy and Finance in the administration of Fernando Belaúnde.[5] Internal problems in government forced him to resign after two months.
In 1968, after Belaúnde had been deposed by a coup, the military government led by General Juan Velasco asked him to return to the post of Minister of Economy and Finance. In 1974, he resigned again, this time because he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Peruvian Army. In 1975, he was appointed to be both Velasco's prime minister and minister of war.
Presidency (1975–1980)[edit]
With President Velasco's health deteriorating, Morales Bermúdez led a military coup against Velasco and took over as President of Peru on 29 August 1975, leading the country through one of its most severe economic crises. He diverged from the revolutionary nationalist-leaning tendencies of the first phase (1968–1975) of the Peruvian Revolution. His regime participated in Operation Condor, with Peruvian forces collaborating with the Intelligence Battalion 601 in the kidnapping of Argentines in Lima in 1980.[6] Around the end of Morales Bermúdez's tenure, a housing crisis emerged which started the Lost Decade.[7] Morales Bermúdez, politically pressured from all sides, failed in enacting successful political and economic reform.
A Constituent Assembly convened by the Morales Bermudez administration was created in 1978, which replaced the 1933 Constitution enacted during Óscar R. Benavides's presidency. After elections were held in 1980, he returned power over to the first democratically elected government after 12 years of military rule, headed by President Fernando Belaúnde.