The most powerful man in the military "junta" (1948–1958) was Pérez Jiménez (though Chalbaud was its titular president) and was suspected of being behind the death in office of Chalbaud, who died in a bungled kidnapping in 1950. When the junta unexpectedly lost the election it held in 1952, it ignored the results and Pérez Jiménez was installed as president, where he remained until 1958. The expansion of the Venezuelan economy in this period was based on the indebtedness of the Venezuelan nation and that was one of the causes of the economic crisis in Venezuela in the 1960s, in which important projects such as the Urban Center El Recreo de Marcel Brauer on Avenida Casanova in Sabana Grande district were paralyzed.