Teodoro Petkoff, 86, former guerrilla leader who won over Wall Street

Teodoro Petkoff, a giant of Venezuela’s politics who led a band of communist guerrillas before becoming a critic of socialist president Hugo Chavez, has died.

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.

Xabier Coscojuela, editor of the newspaper Tal Cual, said the paper’s founder died after a long illness at the age of 86.

Mr 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.”

Mr 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, Mr 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.

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

Mr Petkoff continued with the armed struggle against a US-backed government that replaced Perez Jimenez in 1958.

He turned to journalism in the mid1960s, 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.

Together with other former rebels, Mr Petkoff formed the left-leading Movement Toward Socialism and was elected to the Senate.

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

Mr 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.

Mr Petkoff was celebrated as a critical thinker.