Presidency
Although General Rojas had become the Head of State by means of a political coup d’état on June 13, 1953, to restore peace and order, the Asamblea Nacional Constituyente (Congress), by its Legislative Act Number 1 of 1953, recognized and appointed him as legitimate and constitutional President of Colombia.
Rojas enacted legislation that gave women the equal right to vote. He introduced the television and constructed several hospitals, universities and the National Astronomic Observatory. He was also a strong supporter of public works and infrastructure, promoting and conducting projects such as the Atlantic railway, the hydroelectric dam of Lebrija and the oil refinery of Barrancabermeja.
Read more about this topic: Gustavo Rojas Pinilla
Famous quotes containing the word presidency:
“I once told Nixon that the Presidency is like being a jackass caught in a hail storm. You’ve got to just stand there and take it.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“Some of the offers that have come to me would never have come if I had not been President. That means these people are trying to hire not Calvin Coolidge, but a former President of the United States. I can’t make that kind of use of the office.... I can’t do anything that might take away from the Presidency any of its dignity, or any of the faith people have in it.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“... how often the Presidency has simply meant that a man shall be abused, distrusted, and worked to death while he is filling the great office, and that he should drop into unmerited oblivion when he has left the White House ...”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)