Former Venezuelan president Carlos Andres Perez, whose popularity soared with his country's oil-based economy but who later faced riots, a severe economic downturn and impeachment, has died in Miami.

The 88-year-old Perez's daughter, Maria Francia Perez, said her father died Saturday in a Miami hospital, citing "respiratory failure."

"He was happy and well when he awoke this morning. Suddenly he had difficulty breathing," she told The Associated Press by telephone.

Former Venezuelan president Carlos Andres Perez, shown in 1996, died Christmas Day in Miami of a heart attack, his daughter says. (Ricardo Mazalan/Associated Press)

In the final years of his life, Perez came to personify the old-guard Venezuelan political establishment bitterly opposed by current President Hugo Chavez. Perez survived two coup attempts in 1992, the first of which was led by Chavez, who was then a young army lieutenant colonel.

In recent years, Perez lived in Miami while the Venezuelan government demanded he be turned over to stand trial for his role in putting down bloody 1989 riots. Perez — who governed Venezuela from 1974-79 and again from 1989-93 — denied wrongdoing.

While he was in office, Perez's popularity as a leader rose and fell with the country's economic situation, and he eventually came to be despised by many Venezuelans who resented his elegant suits and his affinity for jetting around Latin America.

In his first term as president, Perez won praise by nationalizing Venezuela's oil industry, paying off foreign oil companies and then capitalizing on a period of prosperity that allowed his government to build subway lines, bankroll new social programs and set up state-run companies in areas from steel to electricity.

He became one of Latin America's most prominent political leaders, popularly known as "CAP," his initials.

Venezuelans elected him for a second time in 1988, hoping for a return to good times after a decade of economic decline. But his popularity plunged when he tried to push through an economic austerity program that included increasing the subsidized price of gasoline.

Anger among the poor boiled over in riots in 1989 and more than 300 people were killed in the unrest known as the "Caracazo." Some activists put the death toll much higher.

Venezuela's congress impeached Perez on corruption charges in 1993 and he was placed under house arrest. Its highest court convicted him in May 1996 of misspending $17 million in public funds — a charge he always denied.

Some of the money had been used to help bankroll the security detail of Violeta Chamorro before she was elected Nicaragua's president in 1990 over leftist incumbent Daniel Ortega. Perez defended the spending as legitimate to help ensure stability after years of conflict in Central America, where he had helped mediate in peace talks.

Perez spent more than two years under house arrest, then was released in September 1996.

Still admired by many Venezuelans, Perez was elected senator in 1998 for his home state of Tachira in the Venezuelan Andes. After Chavez closed the nation's congress in 1999 to elect a new one under a new constitution, Perez left Venezuela. Starting in 2000, he spent his time in Miami, New York and the Dominican Republic, where he often condemned Chavez.