Oswaldo Álvarez Paz is a Venezuelan politician. He was born in Maracaibo, Zulia and graduated in law from the University of Zulia. He was a Member of the Republic's Congress for over 20 years, president of the Venezuelan Chamber of Deputies and participated/directed the most important commissions of the Venezuelan Parliament. He was Rafael Caldera's campaign manager for the 1983 Venezuelan presidential election. In December 1989, he became the first governor of the State of Zulia to be elected by the people, being re-elected for a second period in December 1992. On April 25, 1993, his party, COPEI, held open primary elections to choose a presidential candidate for the 1993 Venezuelan presidential election; almost 20% of Venezuela's 9.8m voters participated in the primary. Álvarez Paz defeated COPEI party leaderEduardo Fernández, resigning his position as governor in order to run. In the campaign Paz supported privatization and foreign investment, and said he aimed for Venezuela to join the North American Free Trade Agreement; he identified the contemporary political figure he admired most as Ronald Reagan. Oswaldo Alvarez Paz obtained 22.7% of the votes, in an election where the winner, Rafael Caldera, won with 30.5%. In May 2005 Alvarez Paz created a new party called "Alianza Popular", organization that, as it states in its by-laws, defends and promotes freedom, democracy State of Law and human rights, as well as the promotion and protection of private property, the contribution to poverty eradication and the disappearing of corruption. On 22 March 2010, Oswaldo Alvarez Paz was arrested for remarks made during a broadcast of the Globovisión talkshow Aló Ciudadano. Álvarez Paz had said "Venezuela has turned into a center of operations that facilitates the business of drug trafficking." He also accused "Chavez of being a subversive element and having direct links with FARC and ETA." He was charged with conspiracy, and with spreading false information and publicly inciting violation of the law, and was sentenced to serve two years in prison. He was released on bail in mid May 2010. In July 2010 the Agencia Venezolana de Noticias reported that Alvarez Paz had in a recent column for El Nacional called for a coup strategy to end what he called the "monstruous" current process. He had written that "It is indispensable to be clear about the indispensable objective. To replace the current regime with as little delay and as little trauma as possible. We don't know when the time will come..."
