The First Free Elections in Argentina Were Held in

1912 Argentine legislative election

← 1910 seven April 1912 1914 →
65 of 120 seats in the National Congress
Turnout	73.xx%
Political party % Seats +/– Conservative Parties 46.lx% 35 -25 Radical Borough Union 21.17% 13 +13 National Borough Wedlock 10.16% half-dozen +half dozen National Matrimony ten.04% 6 +six Socialist Party 6.xx% 2 +two Southern League two.96% 1 +1 This lists parties that won seats. See the consummate results beneath. Results by province

Argentine legislative elections of 1912
were held on vii April 1912 for the Argentine Chamber of Deputies. The kickoff free, democratic elections in the nation’south history, the contest had a turnout of 73%.

Background

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The era of authorisation past the National Autonomist Political party (PAN), made possible by an 1874 understanding between kingmakers Adolfo Alsina and Bartolomé Mitre (besides as by systematic electoral fraud), was also undone by agreement. A visit to Rome in 1909 gave the scion of ane of Argentina’s most powerful families at the time, Roque Sáenz Peña, the opportunity to meet the governing political party’s nemesis – the exiled leader of the Radical Civic Union (UCR), Hipólito Yrigoyen. Between one of their numerous discussions, Sáenz Peña was surprised by news that he would carry the PAN’s standard for the upcoming “elections” of Apr, 1910. Sáenz Peña, who had been passed over in favor of his crumbling (and more conservative) father in 1892, was the counterweight President José Figueroa Alcorta needed against the reactionary wing of his party. Convinced of the need for relectoral reform, Sáenz Peña agreed with Yrigoyen to advance gratuitous and off-white elections.^[ane]

President Sáenz Peña kept his give-and-take to the eccentric popular leader, who in turn rescinded the UCR’s policy of abstentionism. The Sáenz Peña Police force, enacted on February 13, mandated universal male suffrage and the secret election. Argentina’s large immigrant population, near of whom were not withal citizens, were not included in the suffrage; this specially affected larger cities, such every bit Buenos Aires and Rosario, where, at the time, more than than one-half the population were born outside Argentina.^[2]

Voters in the nation’s 14 provinces and Federal District (Buenos Aires) turned out in unprecedented numbers, more than tripling the 199,000 ballots registered in the 1910 elections (the last nether the “scripted vote song” scheme that had limited suffrage and produced anticipated results since 1862). The UCR, whose cold-shoulder, dating from 1892, had left them without representation, was rewarded with xi Congressmen. They maintained their boycott, however, of numerous gubernatorial elections where a lack of legal safeguards was evident – notably in Buenos Aires Province, and were defeated in the La Rioja gubernatorial elections (among the few not boycotted by the political party). The UCR did defeat the rival National Civic Union (UCN) in their first articulation electoral test (the latter had not boycotted earlier elections); the UCR had parted means from the UCN, founded by quondam President Bartolomé Mitre, in 1890.^[two]

The Socialist Political party increased their representation from one (the primary Congressional advocate for social legislation and labor laws, Alfredo Palacios) to 2: Alfredo Palacios and Juan B. Justo.^[3]

The hitherto dominant PAN had suffered a schism in 1908 led past reformist Lisandro de la Torre, who led a meaning faction of the ruling party into the
Liga del Sur
(its successor, Democratic Progressive Party, would become a major 3rd party during the 1920s and ’30s).^[4]
What remained of the PAN became the Conservative Party, which retained its potency in the Senate, albeit a weakened one; but lost its absolute majority in the Lower House, condign more reliant on the Unión Nacional (whose forcefulness was in western Argentina).^[5]

Elections to the Senate remained the responsibility of each provincial legislature, despite the 1912 reforms, in all districts save for the City of Buenos Aires.^[6]
The Buenos Aires race, held on March 30, 1913, resulted in an upset, giving Socialist candidate Enrique del Valle Iberlucea a victory over the UCR’s Leopoldo Melo past 42,000 votes to 39,000. Ten Senate seats in all (one 3rd of the bedroom), were renewed in 1913. The UCR’s sole Senator in 1913 (its first) was Ignacio Iturraspe, elected by Santa Fe Province legislators. The Buenos Aires Province legislature elected Bourgeois Marcelino Ugarte, and the political party besides prevailed in San Juan, Santiago del Estero, and Tucumán.^[7]
Jujuy Province’s two senators were removed on April 21 by President Sáenz Peña amid allegations of electoral fraud in provincial legislature races, and Jujuy Republican Party candidates Octavio Iturbe and Carlos Zabala were certified in their stead;^[iii]
the evolution was another victory for de la Torre, to whose Liga del Sur Iturbe and Zabala also belonged.^[4]

Results

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References

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