In Ecuador, Venezuelan-born General Juan Jose Flores was proclaimed president, and he succeeded in perpetuating his power until 1845. In Venezuela, which had an eminently rural population dominated by merchants and coffee growers, the relative prosperity and peace of the Conservative oligarchy under Paez eventually yielded to heightened conflict between Conservatives and Liberals. Venezuela's multiracial society enjoys an openness of attitude and class mobility encouraged by its contemporary political system and supported by oil income and its rich resource base. Mobility between social classes and subgroupings is also common, and Venezuela has little of the white Hispanic aristocracy that survives in Colombia and Ecuador. Despite the powerful reformist currents of the post-1958 political system, social inequalities remain a major challenge to Venezuela's leadership. In addition to several small, personalistic, ad hoc organizations—"microparties" in the Venezuelan political vernacular—the country has seen the rise and fall of numerous organizations centered about popular independent leaders.