Radical Civic Union
The Unión Cívica Radical (UCR) is an Argentine political party founded on June 26, 1891 by Leandro N. Alem. His history had different conformations and fractures and through them he governed the country ten times, through the presidencies of Hipólito Yrigoyen (1916-1922 and 1928-1930), Marcelo T. de Alvear (1922-1928), Agustín P. Justo (1932-1938), Roberto M. Ortiz (1938-1942), Arturo Frondizi (1958-1962), José María Guido (1962-1963), Arturo Illia (1963-1966), Raúl Alfonsín (1983-1989), and Fernando de la Rúa (1999-2001). He also became Vice President of the Nation in the first terms of Juan Domingo Perón, and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. In the 2015 presidential elections The UCR was part of the Cambiemos alliance, which it won with the presidential candidacy of Mauricio Macri of the Republican Proposal party, but it was not part of the presidential formula.
The UCR brings together groups with diverse ideologies such as Krausism, federalism, liberalism, nationalism, developmentalism, and social democracy, among others. It has been characterized by its ideology in defense of secularism, of egalitarian inspiration, with roots in traditional federalism and Alsinista autonomism, having played a decisive role in the conquest of compulsory and secret male suffrage and the installation of a liberal democracy in the country. At the same time, it is widely representative of the Argentine middle classes during the XX century. It belongs to COPPPAL and since 1996 it belongs to the Socialist International.
The Radical Civic Union originated in Argentina an important political current known as radicalism. Radicalism exceeds the formal framework of the UCR as a political party, giving rise to the formation of parties and political currents that are recognized as "radical". Among the political parties that are recognized as radical are, in addition to the UCR, the Radical Antipersonalist Civic Union (1924-1946), the Radical Civic Union Junta Renovadora (1945-1947), the Radical Civic Union of the People (1957-1972) and the Intransigent Radical Civic Union (1957-1972). Partially radical roots are also recognized by national parties such as the Integration and Development Movement, the Intransigent Party, the ARI, the ARI Civic Coalition, Recreate for Growth and the Republican Proposal, as well as provincial forces such as the San Juan blocism and Lencinismo in Mendoza..
In the presidential elections of 1928, 1937, 1958 and 1963 the two main competing parties were radicals. It is the second Argentine party with the largest number of affiliates, counting in 2022 with 1,879,253 members, representing 23.19% of the total number of citizens affiliated with political parties and 5.49% of Argentine voters, only behind the Justicialista Party.. It is the party with the most affiliates in 5 provinces, Catamarca, in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Mendoza and Río Negro. At the national level, it is part of the Together for Change coalition, except in Río Negro. Likewise, it heads the executive power in three provinces (Corrientes, Jujuy, and Mendoza). The highest authority of the party is Gerardo Morales, elected since December 16, 2021 as president of the National Committee.
Origins
In 1889 Argentina was convulsed by a serious economic crisis that had lasted for two years, and had caused a sharp drop in wages, an increase in unemployment and a string of strikes never seen before. The Argentine state was just being constituted, at a time when the conservative elites lived from power and were concentrated in an oligarchic regime, which abandoned the weakest social strata in Argentina and did not allow the popular vote, having a series of bad attempts by the little opposition to achieve it. The presidency of General Julio Argentino Roca (1880-1886) was succeeded by that of his brother-in-law, Miguel Juárez Celman, whose government was characterized by denunciations of corruption and authoritarianism; His opponents called this management as the Unicato .
On August 20, 1889, Francisco A. Barroetaveña wrote an article published by the newspaper La Nación, owned by then comrade Bartolomé Mitre, titled Tu Quoque Juventud, where he encouraged the youth to take charge of authoritarian abuses and corruption excessive by the official government, obtaining a great repercussion in society and especially in young people, thus achieving great territorial fame and summoning hundreds of young people who will later become the "civics" who will carry out the Park Revolution.
On September 1, 1889, a group of young people organized a large youth rally in the Jardín Florida in the city of Buenos Aires, where the Civic Union of Youth was established, in order to unite the broad spectrum of opponents of the regime of Miguel Juárez Celman, supported by the ruling National Autonomist Party. The party was chaired by Francisco A. Barroetaveña, the natural leader of those young people, accompanied by other young leaders such as Emilio Gouchón, Juan B. Justo, Martín Torino, Marcelo T. de Alvear, Tomás Le Breton, Manuel A. Montes de Oca, among many others. The Youth Civic Union established an honorary relationship with political personalities who appeared as leaders of a dispersed opposition, especially Leandro Alem, Aristóbulo del Valle, Bartolomé Mitre, Pedro Goyena, Vicente Fidel López, Bernardo de Irigoyen, among others. The new youth party then sanctioned a program reminiscent of that of the Republican Party founded by Alem y del Valle in 1877, and organized itself into parochial civic clubs.
On April 13, 1890, the Unión Cívica de la Juventud was consolidated with a great act at the Frontón Buenos Aires, where a new party called Unión Cívica was founded. Leandro N. Alem was elected president, who tried to raise the flag of the dispossessed before the oligarchy, and thus included leaders of the different tendencies opposed to the unicato of Juárez Celman, such as Francisco A. Barroetaveña, the Catholic politicians José Manuel Estrada and Pedro Goyena, Aristóbulo del Valle, Bernardo de Irigoyen, Juan B. Justo, Lisandro de la Torre, and the influential former president and general Bartolomé Mitre.
That same year, 1890, the Civic Union, led by Leandro Alem and Bartolomé Miter, led on July 26 the so-called Revolución del Parque or Revolución del 90, a bloody armed uprising that caused the fall of President Juárez Celman and his replacement by Vice President Carlos Pellegrini. During this battle it is necessary to highlight the figure of Elvira Rawson, the second woman to be able to receive a medical degree in Argentina, who played the role of helping those who fell in the revolution. She would later be honored by Leandro Alem with a scroll and a gold watch and she would become a fervent fighter for women's rights.
The Civic Union was established organically throughout the country and for the first time in Argentine political history a presidential formula had been elected by means of a party convention when the national convention meeting in Rosario consecrated the candidates for president and vice president to Bartolomé Miter and Bernardo de Irigoyen.
However, General Roca, energetic leader of the ruling National Autonomist Party (PAN), agreed with Miter on a formula "for national unity" between the two parties, headed by Miter himself. When the agreement became known, on April 16, 1891, Leandro Alem strongly opposed him, triggering the rupture of the Civic Union and the subsequent withdrawal of Mitre's candidacy.
On June 26, 1891, the followers of Alem formally constituted the Anti-Agreement Civic Union, which would change its name, on July 2, to Radical Civic Union, in both the followers of Miter formed the National Civic Union.
Alem and armed intransigence (1891-1897)
On August 15, 1891, the National Convention of the Radical Civic Union proclaimed Bernardo de Irigoyen as its candidate for president. Leandro Alem said at the time that the UCR program has four flags: political freedom, administrative honesty, impersonality of the coalition, and national sentiment.
A few days before the elections, on April 2, 1892, President Carlos Pellegrini falsely denounced that there was a radical plot to seize power and assassinate the main pro-government leaders. He immediately declared a state of siege and arrested the main radical leaders, including Leandro Alem. Under these conditions and without the participation of the Unión Cívica Radical, the elections were held on April 10 in which the pro-government candidate Luis Sáenz Peña was elected president.
At that time, the characteristics of the Argentine electoral regime in which the "secret ballot" did not apply, and the broad powers enjoyed by the President of the Nation (intervention of provinces, state of siege, control of the armed and security forces), severely conditioned the possibilities of access to power through free elections.
Once the radical leaders were freed, and given the evidence that the national government would once again prevent their access to power through elections by all means, the Unión Cívica Radical began to reorganize and prepare a new armed uprising. Alem would then be characterized by elevating the idea of radical intransigence to the point of constituting it a supreme principle of political action.
At the same time, strong opposition emerged between Alem and his nephew, Hipólito Yrigoyen, who already controlled the radical forces in the Province of Buenos Aires and distrusted his uncle's organizational capacity. The Radical Civic Union was then divided between the reds who supported Alem, and the lyricists who supported Yrigoyen. Among Alem's followers were: Aristóbulo del Valle, Bernardo de Irigoyen, Juan M. Garro, Francisco Barroetaveña, Leopoldo Melo, Adolfo Saldías. For his part, Yrigoyen did not allow anyone to participate in his decision-making, but among the leaders who loyally followed him at the time, the young Marcelo T. de Alvear must be highlighted, who would later become president of the Argentine Nation.
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On July 30, 1893, the Unión Cívica Radical began a new armed insurrection that would last until October 1, when the army recovered the city of Rosario and captured Leandro Alem. The uprising is known as the Revolution of 1893.
With the key collaboration of the radical Aristóbulo del Valle, who served in the government with the strategic functions of a prime minister and the armed forces under his command, the Unión Cívica Radical was very close to win and seize power. The radical armies established revolutionary governments in the provinces of San Luis, Buenos Aires, Tucumán, Corrientes and Santa Fe, and came to designate Leandro Alem as provisional president of the Republic in the city of Rosario. However, the internal division and serious Leadership errors at the crucial moment allowed the government to reorganize itself and harshly suppress the uprising, with the army commanded by General Roca himself.
After the defeat of the insurrection, Alem will write: "The conservative radicals will leave with Don Bernardo de Irigoyen; other radicals will become socialists or anarchists; the scoundrel of Buenos Aires, led by the perfidious traitor of my nephew Hipólito Yrigoyen, will go with Roque Sáenz Peña and the intransigent radicals will go to the very shit".
Shortly after, Aristóbulo del Valle died of a stroke and on July 1, 1896, surrounded by enemies, estranged from his family and confronted with the State, Leandro Alem committed suicide, mainly affected by the defeats and the internal division of the Radical Civic Union. A famous phrase, written in Leandro Alem's political testament, defines it clearly:
"Let it break, but don't bend!"
After Alem was buried, his supporters reorganized around the figure of Bernardo de Irigoyen and controlled the National Committee, from where they began to think of a new alliance with the National Civic Union of Mitre, which became known as &# 34;politics of the parallels". For his part, Lisandro de la Torre, irreconcilably confronted with Hipólito Yrigoyen with whom he fought a duel, left the UCR to found the Liga del Sur, predecessor of the Party Progressive Democrat. Then Hipólito Yrigoyen, disillusioned, decides to dissolve the only real structure that the party had: the Committee of the Province of Buenos Aires, which materializes on September 29, 1897. The following year Roca gives the coup de grace to the Unión Cívica Radical, when it offered Bernardo de Irigoyen the candidacy for governor of the province of Buenos Aires and he accepted. Radicalism then remained as a disorganized movement that only met annually to remember the deceased of the '90 and '93 Revolutions.
Yrigoyen: refoundation, revolution and secret ballot (1903-1916)
In 1903 Hipólito Yrigoyen began to reorganize the UCR for a new revolution. Two years later he led the armed uprising known as the 1905 Revolution , which, although it failed, managed to put enough pressure on the ruling party to produce a fracture.
The most progressive sectors of autonomism, such as Carlos Pellegrini and Roque Sáenz Peña, began to support the need to make institutional changes to contain the growing social and political conflict.
In 1910 when Roque Sáenz Peña was elected president, the UCR was no longer in a position to carry out new armed uprisings, but there was a general belief that the revolution was imminent. Sáenz Peña and Yrigoyen, who maintained a personal friendship since they were young, then had a historic private meeting in which they agreed to sanction a law of free suffrage. Two years later, in 1912, the law of the universal, secret and compulsory for men, known as the Sáenz Peña Law. On the other hand, it was also the first Argentine political party to present a women's vote bill in 1919, which ultimately did not prosper given the conservative majority in Congress.
The Radical Civic Union then put an end to its policy of electoral abstention and attended the parliamentary elections, without forming electoral alliances. For the first time, voting was done in Argentina with a dark room to guarantee the secret vote.
Vote sung, secret vote and democracy
Before 1912, Argentina used an electoral system in which the vote was expressed verbally, or through a ballot, in public and on a voluntary basis, called "voto sung"that corrupted the electoral system. The struggle for democracy in Argentina was not originally related to universal suffrage but to democracy. Secret voteIn the "dark quartz"that independentd the will of the voter of all external pressure. The Sáenz Peña Act of 1912 established the Secret vote and compulsory, but because it did not recognize the right of women to vote and be voted, it is not correct to speak in Argentina of a truly universal system, until 1947.
The Radical Civic Union first won the gubernatorial elections in Santa Fe (Manuel Menchaca), which was followed by a string of victories throughout the country.
Among the radical leaders of that time were: José Camilo Crotto (CF), Leopoldo Melo (CF), Vicente Gallo (CF), Fernando Saguier (CF), Marcelo T. de Alvear (CF), José L. Cantilo (CF), Delfor del Valle (PBA), Horacio Oyhanarte (PBA), Rogelio Araya (SF), Rodolfo Lehmann (SF), Enrique Mosca (SF), Elpidio González (CBA), Pelagio Luna (LR), Miguel Laurencena (ER), José Nestor Lencinas (Mza), Federico Cantoni (SJ).
The electoral triumphs of radicalism produced the collapse of the parties of the political system prior to the Sáenz Peña Law. The National Civic Union self-dissolved on the initiative of Honorio Pueyrredón and its members entered radicalism en masse. The National Autonomist Party disappeared.
On April 2, 1916, for the first time in Argentine history, the presidential elections were held by secret ballot. The UCR obtained 370,000 votes, against 340,00 votes from all the other parties and in the Electoral College its formula was imposed by one vote. Thus began a long cycle of 14 consecutive years of radical governments. The UCR will win the presidential elections on three successive occasions: Hipólito Yrigoyen (1916-1922), Marcelo T. de Alvear (1922-1928), and again Hipólito Yrigoyen (1928-1930). The series of radical governments will be violently interrupted by the military coup of September 6, 1930.
The first government of Hipólito Yrigoyen (1916-1922)
The government of the Unión Cívica Radical meant the arrival to the government and to the direction of the state organizations of members of the middle sectors who until then were effectively excluded from those functions.
The first presidency of Hipólito Yrigoyen promoted a series of new type of policies that together indicated a transforming nationalist trend, among which the creation of the state oil company YPF, the new rural laws, the strengthening of the network public railways, the University Reform and a strongly autonomous foreign policy of the great powers. In labor matters, he promoted some labor laws such as the 8-hour day law and the Sunday rest law, and intervened as a neutral mediator in conflicts between unions and large companies, but during his government the great worker massacres of the Tragic Week, La Forestal and the executions in Patagonia, with thousands of workers murdered. The historian Halperín Donghi explains that the radical governments solved the problem of regional balance in Argentina, but as a consequence of this, at the same time they brought social imbalances to the forefront, for which radicalism lacked fundamental solutions, by ignoring systematically class differences.
Radicalism, during the first government of Yrigoyen, was in the minority in Congress: in the Chamber of Deputies, 45 members were radicals and 70 were opponents, while in the Senate, out of 30 members, only 4 were radicals. Despite this, Yrigoyen maintained an anti-agreement attitude and little inclination to dialogue and negotiation, not only with the traditional conservative parties that controlled the Senate, but also with the new popular parties that gained prominence from the secret vote: the Socialist Party and of the Democratic Progressive Party. Likewise, Yrigoyen carried out a systematic policy of interventions in the provinces and a personal and direct leadership style, which would be severely criticized by his opponents both inside and outside the UCR, calling it "personalismo".
Government of Marcelo T. de Alvear (1922-1928)
In 1922 the Radical Civic Union obtained 450,000 votes against 200,000 for the National Concentration (conservatives). Marcelo T. de Alvear developed a markedly different presidency, in style and content, from that of Hipólito Yrigoyen.
First of all, radicalism during his tenure manifested a clear vocation for dialogue and alliances with other political forces, particularly socialists and progressive democrats. Secondly, Alvear attended the inauguration of monuments, squares and parks, unlike Yrigoyen who was more reserved.
During his government, he appointed Enrique Mosconi as director of YPF, thanks to whose mandate, the state company's oil exploitation grew. The agro-export factor grew highly, the automotive fleet increased, installing the first Ford automotive production plant in Latin America.
In 1928 the per capita GDP grew as a consequence of economic growth, reaching sixth place among the 46 existing countries at that time.
Diversity and division of radicalism
Yrigoyenism and anti-personalism
Yrigoyen imposed a very personal and direct leadership style, in which his ministers appeared with little autonomy. The opposition, and later a large sector of the UCR, would severely criticize this style, which was called personalist. One of the principles of the UCR when it was founded was to be impersonal, differentiating itself of the personalisms characteristic of the parties of oligarchic stamp. From that tension derived their internal conflicts and, especially, the split between personalists and anti-personalists that broke out in 1924.
The Radical Civic Union was divided internally, since the beginning of the century, between the so-called "blues" or "galeritas", with a more conservative tendency and upper-middle-class social origin, very strong in the City of Buenos Aires, and the so-called "greys" of more popular tendency and social origin of lower middle class, strong in the Province of Buenos Aires.
The roots of the confrontation go back to the time of the radical revolution of 1893, which divided the party between followers of its founder, Leandro N. Alem, and his nephew, Hipólito Yrigoyen. Many of Alem's followers, such as Francisco Barroetaveña, Martín Torino, Tomás Le Breton, or Emilio Gouchón, joined the ranks of the group opposed to Yrigoyen, the basis of future anti-Yrigoyenism. Another radical sector had followed Bernardo de Irigoyen in his government of the Province of Buenos Aires; when they rejoined the main trunk of radicalism, several members of this group did not accept Yrigoyen's leadership.Finally, a sector led by Leopoldo Melo confronted Yrigoyen in 1909, opposing the abstentionism that Yrigoyen held as the center of the political strategy of he.
The anti-personalists criticized Yrigoyen's vertical and personalist leadership, as well as his closed personality and little prone to dialogue, raising one of the four flags that Leandro Alem pointed out as bases of radicalism: "the impersonality of the coalition".
When it became a government party, tensions within radicalism took the form of local divisions that progressively turned into a confrontation over which was the true radicalism: that of the "cause" synthesized in its leader or in the game. In Santa Fe and Córdoba, the party divided before the 1916 elections, in Córdoba and Tucumán, as soon as the governor took office; the colors red and blue —later also black— sometimes identified the government sector and other times that of the opposition. Initially these movements arose from local interests and only later did they take on a national character.
In 1920, the Radical Civic Union suffered a fracture, detaching from it the Unified Radical Civic Union led by Enrique Mosca, who would win the elections for governor of the Province of Santa Fe in 1920 and 1924. These internal differences were They deepened after the confrontation between Alvear and Yrigoyen, which in turn led to a split in the UCR between yrigoyenistas and antipersonalistas starting in 1924. The leader of radicalism antipersonalist was Leopoldo Melo, and with him were among others Vicente Gallo, Tomás Le Breton, José P. Tamborini, José C. Crotto, the principistas of Entre Ríos headed by Miguel Laurencena, and the future president of the Roberto M. Ortiz Nation. Questioning the vertical leadership of the "caudillo" Hipólito Yrigoyen, the Radical Antipersonalist Civic Union took up one of the four banners of radicalism supported by Alem: the impersonality of the coalition. The lencinismo of Mendoza and the bloquismo of San Juan, also joined the anti-personalist radicalism although without losing identity. Marcelo T. de Alvear did not explicitly support the anti-personalists, since he never openly joined them. Perhaps it is appropriate to mention that anti-personalism was created with Alvear in government. When in 1926 the sector tried to intervene in the province of Buenos Aires to affect the electoral possibilities of Yrigoyenism, Alvear prevented it, which set up a serious setback for anti-personalism.
In 1927, the Radical Antipersonalist Civic Union elected Leopoldo Melo as its candidate for president, accompanied by Vicente Gallo for vice president, who was immediately supported by the Confederation of the Right, unifying the entire conservative spectrum. For its part, in In 1928, the convention of the Radical Civic Union consecrated the "Caudillo" candidate, as Yrigoyen was called by his supporters, and Francisco Beiró from Entre Ríos as vice-presidential candidate.
Elections were held on April 1, 1928, polarizing between the two radical candidates. Yrigoyen's victory was overwhelming: 840,000 votes against 440,000 for Melo-Gallo.
The Radical Antipersonalist Civic Union supported the coup against Hipólito Yrigoyen in 1930 and later joined La Concordancia, an electoral front also made up of the National Democratic Party (conservative) and the Independent Socialist Party, which fraudulently maintained power during the Infamous Decade. The radical president Roberto M. Ortiz, successively belonged to the UCR and the UCRA.
Mendoza lencinismo
Radicalism assumed differentiated characteristics in several provinces. Some of these currents came to separate from the UCR, forming provincial parties that in some cases, such as the San Juan Radical Bloquita Civic Union, are still active today.
In Mendoza, a radical current known as lencinismo arose. Lencinismo was founded by José Néstor "El Gaucho" Lencinas, one of the founders of the Radical Civic Union, elected governor in 1918. After his death in 1920 the leadership was continued by his sons, José Hipólito, Rafael and especially Carlos Washington. Lencinismo carried out a program of social transformations linked to the lowest social sectors, which placed it as to the left of radicalism. The verbal symbol of lencinismo was the espadrille, popular footwear for the neediest social classes.
Los Lencinas faced both conservatives from Mendoza (they called themselves "geese"), as well as Hipólito Yrigoyen, placing themselves in the anti-personalist camp. During the 1920s, Lencinismo won all the provincial elections, but at the same time their governments were repeatedly intervened by the radical national government.
The peak of the confrontation between Lencinismo and Yrigoyenismo occurred in 1929 when the radical majority rejected the specifications of Carlos Washington Lencinas as a national senator, and he was assassinated shortly after. Historically, lencinismo attributed the murder to Hipólito Yrigoyen, although this has not been proven. Produced the military coup d'état of September 6, 1930, Lencinism never returned to power in the province, beginning a path of decadence.
San Juan blockism
The Bloquista Party originated in a strong division of the Radical Civic Union of the province of San Juan. The brothers Federico and Aldo Cantoni, former radical and eastern socialist, founded the Unión Cívica Radical Bloquista with a popular progressive program, which was widely popular in that province.
Federico Cantoni was elected governor in 1923 and in 1931. Aldo Cantoni was elected governor in 1925. On the first two occasions they were displaced by federal interventions ordered by the radical presidents Marcelo T. de Alvear and Hipólito Yrigoyen, with whom they were at odds. In 1934 Federico Cantoni was overthrown in a bloody coup organized by conservatives.
The bloquism in San Juan carried out one of the most progressive government works in Argentine history: women's suffrage in 1927 for the first time in Argentine history, advanced labor laws, a progressive tax system, development of education technique, agrarian reform, State intervention to promote the wine and olive industry, a road network in order to populate the territory, popular parks, housing plans for workers. In that decade the bloquism nationally supported the Radical Antipersonalist Civic Union.
Entre Ríos anti-personalist radicalism
In 1914, the radical Miguel Laurencena was elected governor of the Province of Entre Ríos seconded by Luis L. Etchevehere as vice-governor, inaugurating a series of provincial governments of the Radical Civic Union that would last until the military coup of 1943.
After his government ended, Laurencena adopted a position in opposition to Hipólito Yrigoyen. In 1922 Laurencena, almost alone -the UCR of Entre Ríos had not yet divided- was a candidate for president for the ephemeral Unión Cívica Radical Principista that led him as a candidate for president in 1922, where he obtained a minimum number of votes (18,000 against the 450,000 obtained by Alvear). In 1924 the anti-personalist radicals were part of the group of radical leaders who founded the Antipersonalist Radical Civic Union. Indeed, in 1924 the UCR of Entre Ríos was divided, leaving Governor Ramón Mihura in the Radical Civic Union of Entre Ríos, or impersonalist sector, and Lieutenant Governor Enrique Pérez Colman in the UCR National Committee, solidarity with former president Yrigoyen. In 1926 the UCR of Entre Ríos won the elections taking Eduardo Laurencena as a candidate for governor, in a formula completed by José María Garayalde, against that of the Yrigoyenista radicalism, which had Francisco Beiró as a candidate for governor and would win the gubernatorial elections again in 1930, running the formula Herminio J. Quirós - Cándido Uranga, against the candidacy of the yrigoyenista Enrique Fermín Mihura. Overthrown Yrigoyen in 1930, Entre Ríos was not intervened, and before the death of Lieutenant Governor Uranga, first and then Governor Quirós, the UCR of Entre Ríos triumphed again, taking former Senator Luis L. Etchevehere to the governorship, seconded by José María Texier, abstaining the Yrigoyenistas from Entre Ríos in solidarity with the radical presidential candidate, Marcelo T. de Alvear, prevented from presenting himself. For its part, after having withdrawn from the national organizations of anti-personalism, the UCR of Entre Ríos met its Provincial Convention on September 22 and 23, 1931, (the same one in which Luis Etchetevehere was elected candidate for governor) and it resolved, on the one hand, to reject any understanding with "personalist radicalism" (that is, the one chaired by Alvear) and at the same time declare "that the attitude of General Agustín P. Justo, candidate for Party president, is inadmissible, accepting for himself and before himself his inclusion in a formula made up of a member of another party, what matters is breaking the solidarity of the party formula" for which "this obliges the Radical Civic Union of Entre Ríos to recover its freedom of action" and attend the presidential election with a list of voters whose mandate will be resolved by a subsequent provincial convention". These voters, whose list triumphed in the province of Entre Ríos, supported the formula headed by Francisco Barroetaveña and José Nicolás Matienzo. After the lifting of the electoral abstention by the Radical Civic Union, the radicalism of Entre Ríos divided in 1924 was reunited in 1935, with the merger of the UCR of Entre Ríos (impersonalist) and the UCR "yrigoyenista" of Entre Ríos, which responded to the National Committee chaired by Alvear. For this purpose, on February 21, 1935, the unity formula made up of Eduardo Tibiletti (anti-personalist) and Roberto Lanús (yrigoyenista) was chosen. The reunified radicalism would win the gubernatorial elections of 1939 and 1943. In the latter case, the elected candidates could not take office due to the coup d'état of June 4, 1943.
Verismo from Tucumán
In 1922, Octaviano Vera was elected governor of Tucumán. Vera, who had adopted the espadrille as a party symbol, sought to represent workers in the sugar industry and confront the powerful owners of the sugar mills, who controlled the provincial economy.
The combination of a great strike carried out in April of that year and the promotion of advanced labor legislation (minimum wage and eight-hour day), put the employers on a war footing and made the Argentine Sugar Center restructure itself to coordinate measures in order to block the “labor legislation” of Tucumán. The failure of the sugar industrialists to comply with the new labor laws caused a state of social upheaval, as well as worker uprisings encouraged by agents of the provincial government between May and June 1923, which undermined the authority of the Octaviano Vera government. In November In 1923 the province was intervened by the National Executive Power and Vera was separated from his position.
The federal inspector, Dr. Gondra, was helped by the industrialists, who lent him 2 million pesos, for the payment of the public administration, on account of the 1924 harvest tax. Meanwhile, one of the radical fractions, headed by the national deputy Antonio B. Toledo, asked the inspector to enforce the “labor laws”, with a maximum working day of eight hours and a minimum salary of 4.20 pesos. But Gondra did not apply them, because he was aligned with the industrial sector.
Tanquismo from Jujuy
Miguel Tanco was a radical leader who was minister and later governor of the province of Jujuy, during the 1920s. Tanco promoted an advanced social and pro-indigenous policy that aimed to subsidize the purchase of land in the Puna and Quebrada of Humahuaca with the purpose of distributing it among the indigenous communities, together with the carrying out of infrastructure works, establishment of industries and workers' housing. A UCR flyer gave an account of the tank policy in these terms:
To the People of Salta 'provinceArgentina ́
! Through this law the powerful, the one who has millions in love with the sweat and the wear of the worker's life, are forced to give him bread and a humble roof... Today the children of the people must no longer drag chains! To concur all in mass when it comes to sanctioning the law to know personally and not to confuse legislators who do not want to sanction it, which from that moment on will be high treason to the interests of the humble. Live the children of the people!Radical Civic Union, 1923
Tanquismo was resisted by the conservative sectors of the UCR and the upper classes of Jujuy. In 1930, allied with Yrigoyen, Tanco managed to be elected governor and expropriate an enormous amount of land in the Puna and the Quebrada de Humahuaca, but a few months later he was overthrown, with the coup d'état that evicted the Yrigoyenist government. In 1946 Tanco would be elected as a senator for Peronism.
Government of Marcelo T. de Alvear (1922-1928)
The elections were held on April 2, 1922. Marcelo T. de Alvear, for the UCR, was victorious with 450,000 votes; the National Concentration (conservative electoral alliance) obtained 200,000 votes; the Socialist Party got 75,000 votes; and the Democratic Progressive Party got 75,000 votes. The Vice President was Elpidio González.
Marcelo T. de Alvear developed a markedly different presidency, in style and content, from that of Hipólito Yrigoyen.
In the first place, during his tenure, radicalism manifested a clear vocation for dialogue and alliances with other political forces, particularly with socialists and progressive democrats. The presence of radical militants in the cabinet was reduced and the ministers and secretaries enjoyed greater autonomy. Minister José Nicolás Matienzo played a cabinet coordination role. Two ministers of Alvear's cabinet would be presidents of the Nation during the Infamous Decade: Agustín P. Justo and Roberto M. Ortiz.
Secondly, certain policies of economic, political and social transformation that the Yrigoyen government had outlined were attenuated, if not directly reversed, during the Alvear government. The most extreme case was with the University Reform. This did not, however, prevent the Alvear government from sending the oil nationalization bill to Congress, although it never managed to get it approved.
Nevertheless, although to a lesser extent than his predecessor, the new radical adopted several measures of social welfare, such as Law No. 11,289 in 1923; although it meant a step towards universal and mandatory retirement, later in 1926, the Industrial Union managed to annul it by means of a new law, arguing that it would be too expensive to maintain it.[citation needed] The labor movement also complained about it, since they did not want the 5% corresponding to worker contributions to be deducted from their salaries. Law No. 11,317 sanctioned in 1924 prohibited the work of women and minors in the Federal Capital and in the national territories, Pablo Troncoso highlighted that article 23 of said law empowers trade unions to denounce and criminally accuse any violation of their provisions. In 1926, a commission headed by the socialist Mario Bravo managed to elaborate and sanction Law No. 11,388 called "Legal Regime of Cooperative Societies", whose second article expressed the principles of association free and voluntary, promotion of education and avoid privileges for the founders of the same. Almost at the same time, law no. those national taxes on stamped paper, as well as the value of buildings and facilities and patents.
Social security laws were also enacted: retirement for bank employees, Law No. 11,232 and 11,575, and primary school teachers, Law No. 11,312. In addition, Law No. 11,275 created the Social Welfare Fund for pensions to employees and workers, the law no. Thanks to Law No. 11,287, inheritance taxes were established, which this time produced a greater redistribution, which served to reinforce popular education. In 1924 the retirement of teachers was increased, before it was very low. However, the government practically attenuated the process of university reform, when the Casa de Altos Estudios de La Plata and the Casa del Litoral intervened, in addition to sanctioning an anti-reformist statute for the Casa de Buenos Aires. During his presidency and on the occasion of the end of the war, the flow of immigration to Argentina was reactivated. From 1924 to 1929, almost two million people entered the country, of which 650,000 remained in the country.
From the year 1925 there was a huge increase in foreign investments from the United States, which were made through companies related to the refrigeration industry, with distribution and energy production organizations, and goods of consumption. This "invasion" The sudden increase in US capital caused a competition with capital from the United Kingdom, that rivalry was reflected in areas such as transport (between the automotive products exported from the United States and the English railways). But competition with refrigeration companies linked to these two countries also became more acute. These conflicts led to the deterioration of relations with the English. As a result, due to the empire of the loans of American origin that the second Radical presidency contracted, the public debt grew notably during the administration of Alvear in comparison to the first presidency of Yrigoyen, for 1928 it was 1763 million pesos.
When Alvear took office there was a crisis in the livestock sector, since the frozen meats produced by Argentina were not useful for a war economy like the European one, so in previous years exports of frozen meat decreased. Breeders who had excess cattle had to sell their animals at low prices. Cattle breeders had requested in 1921 protection from the Argentine government towards the handling of meat trusts. For this reason, the government sanctioned three laws in 1923, No. 227 and 11,228, the first established a control regime for meat trade, the second set the minimum and maximum prices for sale, and the third established a control regime for commercial transactions of cattle to avoid vouchers, common inside. Thus, a State refrigerator was created, years later baptized with the name of Lisandro de la Torre. Efforts were made to avoid speculation, and establish forms of marketing and control, ensuring supply at reasonable prices.
At the end of Alvear's term in 1928, the country had a greater number of automobiles than France, and a greater number of telephone lines than Japan.
The Radical Antipersonalist Civic Union
Alvear had been proposed as a candidate by Yrigoyen, perhaps because he believed that his sympathy for the detractors of his predecessor's personalismo, combined with his personal loyalty, would prevent a break within radicalismo.
The internal opposition sectors quickly aligned themselves behind the figure of Alvear, forming a differentiated sector, known as the Unión Cívica Radical Antipersonalista. For the moment there was no rupture, because the anti-personalists apparently had the intention of displacing Yrigoyen's supporters from all their posts, including in the party. They obtained several provincial governments and occupied almost all the ministries; His main opponent was Vice President Elpidio González, openly Yrigoyenista. According to Félix Luna in his book Yrigoyen , Alvear had not encouraged the creation of the anti-personalist faction, but the removal of him from the caudillo was enough for the most conservative sectors within radicalism to become enemies with the & # 34;personalists& # 34;.
But the division of the radical party became inevitable in 1923: nine radical senators declared themselves "anti-personalists," that is, against "personalismo" of Hipólito Yrigoyen, and offered their support to President Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear. There were also frictions between him and his vice president Elpidio González. In fact, the division began when the senators began to harass Vice President González. Yrigoyenism took the anti-personalists as conservatives. On the other hand, the anti-personalists said that Yrigoyen violated the rules of the political game. These disputes continued, and what was worse, they were transferred to Congress, where the deputies loyal to Yrigoyen used to hinder the initiatives of the Executive Power, either through discussions or by withdrawing from the premises to avoid giving quorum. In this context, President Alvear closed the extraordinary sessions by decree, given that legislative activity was almost nil.
The leader of antipersonalist radicalism was Leopoldo Melo; with him were, among others, Vicente Gallo, Tomás Le Breton, José P. Tamborini, Enrique Mosca, José C. Crotto and Roberto M. Ortiz.
Several provincial groups also aligned themselves with anti-personalism, but from a completely opposite point of view: the lencinismo of Mendoza and the bloquismo of San Juan had clearly populist tendencies. On the other hand, who would be the most significant leader of radicalism in Entre Ríos, Eduardo Laurencena, was of a liberal economic tendency. In 1924 the UCR of the City of Buenos Aires was divided: two parallel Committees were formed and the Radical Antipersonalist Civic Union led by Leopoldo Melo and Enrique Mosca officially appeared. The same thing happened in Entre Ríos, in which sectors disaffected by Yrigoyen formed the Radical Civic Union of Entre Ríos, led by Eduardo Laurencena and with the support of Governor Ramón Mihura, while Lieutenant Governor Enrique Pérez Colman leaned towards the solidarity faction. with the former president. In 1925, the Radical Antipersonalist Civic Union formed its own National Committee. In the parliamentary elections of 1926, it ran with its own candidates and ranked as the second national force with 218,000 votes behind the UCR, which obtained 338,000 votes. Because the Conservatives had placed third with 160,000 votes, the possibility of an alliance between Conservatives and Anti-Personalists was becoming more likely to win the 1928 presidential election.
Although Alvear had anti-personalist ministers, when this sector asked him to intervene in the province of Buenos Aires to affect the electoral possibilities of Yrigoyenism, Alvear refused and prevented it, seriously affecting anti-personalist radicalism. Alvear's response to his anti-personalist friends It was very demonstrative of his political position:
"Don't fuck me! Arrange yourselves alone and win if they are more!"
Simultaneously, autonomous radical movements arose, such as the one developed by the Lencinas in Mendoza. Lencinismo was at odds with Hipólito Yrigoyen and was originally aligned with the anti-personalists. But the alliance would not last long, especially since the social policies of Lencinismo (eight-hour workday, minimum wage law, creation of retirement and pension funds), among others, collided with the conservative bias of anti-personalism. Because of this, Alvear intervened in Mendoza in 1924.
Patriotic League and fascism
Several studies have highlighted the relations between radicalism and fascism at this stage, mainly through the Argentine Patriotic League and the "Italian Group" by Vittorio Valdani. The Patriotic League, whose president was the radical Manuel Carlés and whose vice-president, Admiral Manuel Domecq García, became a minister during the government of Marcelo T. de Alvear, assembled a parapolice army of several thousand people, executing acts of terrorism, against trade union, anarchist, socialist and Jewish targets. During the Tragic Week massacre in 1919, he was responsible for carrying out the only anti-Semitic pogroms recorded in Argentina and the first mass disappearances of people.
The Italian businessman Vittorio Valdani, vice president of the Argentine Industrial Union (UIA) between 1911 and 1930, was commissioned by the Italian Fascist Party to organize and direct the Italian Fasci in Argentina, creating in 1930 the main press organ of Fascism in South America, the newspaper Il Mattino d'Italia. He received the support of the radical government and was appointed by President Marcelo T. de Alvear as Administrative Director of the state company Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales (YPF).
The second government of Hipólito Yrigoyen (1928-1930)
Campaign
Towards the end of the Alvear government, the country and the radicalism itself were deeply divided with respect to Yrigoyen. The division reached the point that the Yrigoyenistas considered it a "plebiscite." The newspapers La Época and Crítica, both favorable to Yrigoyen, carried out numerous publications in which he represented the presidential election as a mere formality, stressing that the radical candidate had already practically won the presidency by right, and portraying it as the banner of constitutionality, democracy, and the republic, while the opposition should be seen as "people incapable of understanding that the decision has already been made by the people."
Simultaneously, and to contrast with the aging image of the candidate, the UCR resorted to modernizing elements in its campaign that were unprecedented novelties for the time. To begin with, Yrigoyen was not only supported by his political party, but also by figures from the cultural world, such as the Yrigoyenista Committee of Young Intellectuals, chaired by a young Jorge Luis Borges, with Leopoldo Marechal as vice president. The main tango composers of the time they composed pieces dedicated to the candidate, such as "Hipólito Yrigoyen" by Enrique P. Maroni, "The Old Man Again" by Alfredo Gobbi, and "Our Man" by Roberto Torres and Anselmo Aietta. In the conferences offered by the radicalismo candidates, either to the Electoral College, to the Chamber of Deputies or to the Deliberative Council of the Capital, the newspapers associated with radicalismo described the turnout in " thousands" and "multitudes", without giving exact figures.
In what was considered an absolute innovation, the National Committee of the UCR commissioned the filming and free exhibition of a film, which was called "The work of the radical government, 1916-1922". The almost forty-minute film was directed by Italian filmmaker Federico Valle and portrayed a large number of achievements made during Yrigoyen's first term, (such as respect for the working class, educational and health reforms, and economic growth) while some subtitles explained why voters should vote for the former president again. The film ended with the message: "Worker or employee! The radical government did for you, for your good, that of your wife, that of your children, what no other government had done before, or will do after, other than it. Son of your strength, it is your strength that will magnify him. Your vote cannot be treasonous because it would be betraying yourself, your home and your children. Vote for the candidates of the Radical Civic Union!". It was the first time that an Argentine political candidate resorted to cinematography to campaign.
Among opposition figures, the Buenos Aires daily La Prensa, pro-United Front, was at that time the main outlet for disseminating the opposition and one of the largest media outlets in the country. country. In an article published on March 18, 1928, the newspaper harshly portrayed radicalism as unbridled populism, while criticizing that the UCR had proclaimed its candidates much later to negatively affect the campaign promoted by its opponents. The following day, La Época responded sarcastically to the criticisms of La Prensa, in an article titled "Punctualing Concepts", in which it referred to to the morning paper as a "newspaper mercachifle", and affirmed that radicalism "does not need more mentors than public opinion". At the same time, radical newspapers published reports of attacks on UCR acts by conservative groups. Radicalism threatened the violent attitude of conservatives in the "lack of democratic culture".
Essentially, the strategy of the conservative-antipersonalist front was to portray Yrigoyen's radicalism as a force of authoritarian character, which was undoing the republican institutions through the autocratic attitude of its leader. Melo carried out a harsh media campaign with the media that were related to him, which caused the presidential joust to practically become a journalistic fight between the UCR and the United Front. During the campaign, numerous cartoons were published, portraying Yrigoyen and radicalism in a grotesque manner, the best known being one in which a claw-shaped hand hovers over the Republic (represented by a woman) in a threatening manner. Radicals criticized this campaign as an attempt to scare the electorate, while referring to it as "irreverent," and as a "frustrated and irritated reaction" before his imminent electoral failure. The position of the newspapers, the radicalismo and the United Front, was to effectively achieve that the election was polarized between Yrigoyen and Melo, which caused that during most of the campaign, the other parties saw each other practically discarded.
Just a few days before the elections were to take place, Yrigoyen's UCR suspended its campaign, declaring that it was doing so because of the violence incited by the United Front. Later analyzes suggest that this was a bold strategy to incite the anger of the population, which would unleash Yrigoyen's landslide victory and massive voter turnout.
Government and coup
Yrigoyen's second government coincided with the Great World Depression of 1929, which paralyzed economic activity and put the capitalist system itself in crisis. Radicalism, seriously divided and with Yrigoyen in the presidency, did not know how to find answers. The radical historian Félix Luna says of that moment:
The collapse of the liberating momentum of the radical government was mainly due to the collapse of radicalism itself.
Yrigoyen was widely criticized for a series of interventions in the provinces and assassinations of opponents, among them that of Senator Lencinas, and when the parliamentary elections of 1930 were held, the radicalismo lost resoundingly in the city of Buenos Aires, coming third behind of the Independent Socialist Party and the Socialist Party, also losing in the national total. There were still four years to go before the presidential elections and the weakness of the Yrigoyen government became critical.
Under these conditions, on August 1, 1930, in one of the boldest measures taken during the Yrigoyen government, YPF intervened in the market to fix the price of oil and break the trusts. Because of this, some historians have said that the coup smelled of oil.
On September 6, 1930, General José Félix Uriburu overthrew the constitutional government in the first successful coup in the country.
The radical anti-personalist era under the Concordance government (1930-1943)
The coup d'état of September 6, 1930 was supported by the Antipersonalist Radical Civic Union and even by broad sectors of the Radical Civic Union. Two days after the coup, Marcelo T. de Alvear himself declared before journalists in his mansion Coeur Volant in Paris:
«It had to be like that. Yrigoyen, with absolute ignorance of any practice of democratic government, seems to have been pleased to undermine institutions. Governance is not payar (...) My impression, which I convey to the Argentine people, is that the army, which has sworn to defend the Constitution, must deserve our confidence and that it will not be a pretorian guard or that it is willing to tolerate the harmful work of any dictator."Alvear en The Reason1930.
It should be noted that during the period from 1928 until the coup in 1930, Alvear found out about the Argentine political situation only through the numerous letters that his friends sent him —in most cases from the most anti-personalists contrary to Yrigoyen—which largely described to him a much more chaotic situation than it really was.
In March 1931, the military government called for gubernatorial elections in the province of Buenos Aires, which were to take place on April 5. Radicalism was disorganized and divided; in mid-March it was possible to establish the Provincial Convention. Fernando Saguier, Roberto Marcelino Ortiz, Vicente Gallo, Carlos Noel and José P. Tamborini telephoned Paris to notify Alvear that they would promote his name at the Provincial Convention, but the delegates ended up choosing Honorio Pueyrredón. The scrutiny of the elections began only on April 8, and gave victory to radicalism, with Pueyrredón and José María Guido being the winners. The dictatorship then annulled the elections and began to look for another political solution that would prevent the return of Yrigoyenism to power.
During Alvear's leadership, the UCR maintained an international position of questioning the totalitarian regimes of Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, and actively participated in supporting the Republic during the Spanish Civil War. Taking advantage of the disorganization and discredit of the UCR, among other issues, the Uriburu government called elections for April 5, 1931 in the province of Buenos Aires. Against all odds, the radical candidates (the Yrigoyenista Honorio Pueyrredón, Yrigoyen's former foreign minister, and the anti-personalist José María Guido) won the elections.
Alvear met with Uriburu, who told the radical leader that he could once again accede to the presidency, as long as he guaranteed that there were no Yrigoyenistas on his list; but Alvear rejected that proposal and began efforts to unify radicalism around his figure. On May 4, the federal controller in the Province of Buenos Aires, Carlos Meyer Pellegrini, was replaced by Mariano Vedia (son) with the position of delegate and on May 12, he was in turn replaced by Manuel Ramón Alvarado as federal controller. In the meantime, on May 8, Uriburu suspended the call for the provincial electoral college and called elections for the National Congress for November 8.
On May 16, 1931, the City Manifesto appeared, calling on radicalism throughout the country to reorganize “worthily fortified in adversity”. On the 28th of the same month, the City Board was organized, chaired by Alvear, and made up of Adolfo Güemes, Enrique Mosca, Julio Borda and Obdulio Siri, to replace the National Committee, which in fact had been dissolved after the coup. While Hipólito Yrigoyen was still in prison, the radicals reopened the committees. On June 5, the government lifted the validity of martial law.
Simultaneously, Yrigoyen supported this orientation, saying:
Marcelo must be surrounded.
Marcelo is radical, he lacks apostolate but is radical.
On July 20, 1931, a revolution broke out in the province of Corrientes, led by Lieutenant Colonel Gregorio Pomar. Although it was quickly repressed, it gave Uriburu the excuse he was looking for: the government denounced the existence of a terrorist plan and ordered the raid of the radical premises, forcing various political leaders such as Pueyrredón, Guido, Ratto, Noel, Tamborini and Torello to go into exile from the country —except for Güemes, who managed to hide. Among the "self-exiled" was Alvear himself: at 10 p.m. on July 28, 1931, he went into exile, one day after having drawn up a manifesto that the dictatorship prohibited him from publishing, and which he had to disseminate by both clandestinely. In one part it said:
«I look from afar, on the boat that drives me away, the birthplace where the statues of my ancestors stand. I was entitled to respect for all social classes, because I knew how to govern them with legality, order and prudence. My hands are torn from their bosom."Alvear in 1931.
On May 16, 1931, the City Manifesto appeared, calling on radicalism throughout the country to reorganize “worthily fortified in adversity”. On the 28th of the same month, the City Board was organized, preceded by Alvear, and made up of Adolfo Güemes, Enrique Mosca, Julio Borda and Obdulio Siri, to replace the National Committee, practically dissolved after the coup. While Hipólito Yrigoyen continued imprisoned, the radicals reopened the committees. On June 5, the government lifted the validity of martial law.
On September 25, 1931, the National Convention of the UCR met, chaired by Benjamín Zorrilla, which —after reconstituting the National Committee and approving an electoral platform— chose Alvear as its candidate for president, while for the vice presidency he was elected Güemes, after the resignation of the other candidate with possibilities, Fernando Saguier. In a telephone communication to Rio de Janeiro, Alvear announced his resignation from the candidacy because his candidacy could possibly be annulled, since a presidential term had not passed after his own presidency and, furthermore, he believed that a renewal should take place in the political figures. However, through Torello, the leaders insisted that he appear on the formula, since they supposed him to be the only man who could forge the party's union. Late at night, a telephone communication arrived in which Alvear accepted the candidacy.
On October 16, the government ordered the prosecution of all the radical leaders who signed the manifesto, so that on October 27 the National Committee declared the absolute abstention of the Radical Civic Union in the upcoming elections on November 8. These were held on November 8, 1931; in Buenos Aires, almost all opposition prosecutors were expelled, while some people were made to vote at gunpoint. There were also acts of violence in the province of La Rioja and San Juan. In these questionable conditions, the presidential elections were held, the Concordance binomial, formed by General Agustín P. Justo, for radicalism, and Julio Roca (son), for the liberal-conservative forces reorganized into the National Democratic Party, triumphed.. On February 20, 1932, the new government took office.
On December 29, the government declared a state of siege as a result of the failed 1932 revolution that began days before, led by Atilio Cattáneo, for which the government blamed radicalism and hundreds of radicals were arrested in Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Rosario and in other cities in the interior. The Ritz hotel in Santa Fe, where the main radical leaders were staying, was surrounded by armed forces, and they were arrested and taken in army trucks to the merchant ship General Artigas; among the 98 arrested Alvear, Honorio Pueyrredón, Güemes, Tamborini and General Luis Dellepiane were there. barracks in which they shared the facilities. Later, with the entry of more political prisoners, they arrived one hundred and eight.
The military government organized a system of repression and electoral fraud, with the stated aim of preventing the Radical Civic Union from triumphing again in the presidential elections. Finally, in 1932, the victory belonged to Gral. Agustín P. Justo, a trusted man of various sectors of the political elite. This period has been dubbed the "Infamous Decade" and lasted until the military coup of 1943. Politically, the infamous decade was dominated by the Concordance, an alliance made up of the conservative forces reorganized into the National Democratic Party, the Radical Antipersonalist Civic Union led by Leopoldo Melo and Roberto M. Ortiz, and the Independent Socialist Party.
On July 3, 1933, Hipólito Yrigoyen died and at his funeral the people of the city of Buenos Aires held one of the most impressive mass demonstrations in Argentine history.
In 1935, the Radical Civic Union decided to lift the abstention and participate in the elections, triumphing in Entre Ríos. The lifting of the abstention responded to the rebellion of other provincial districts as was the case of Tucumán, where the local radicals in mid-1934 challenged the abstention decreed by the National Convention of the Party, and proclaimed Miguel Mario Campero as a candidate for governor, triumphing in the November elections of that year. This gesture determined that the Tucuman radicals declared themselves detached from the National Committee, chaired by Alvear, constituting a variable of radicalism, called "concurrencista", which would remain in power in that province until 1943. These divisions of radicalism in the provinces, they put Alvear's leadership in check, in addition to a permanent tension between partisan obedience and negotiation with the radical factions that governed the provinces with the anti-personalist radicals that made up the Concordance government presided over by Agustín P. Justo. In 1936 the UCR triumphed in the Federal Capital and in the province of Córdoba, with Amadeo Sabattini. Faced with these triumphs, Cordovan radicalism followed its own political line, attached to the intransigent yrigoyenismo that it will confront with the moderate political vision of the National Committee chaired by Alvear.
Despite these victories, in the 1937 presidential elections the Concordance candidate, the radical anti-personalist Roberto M. Ortiz, defeated Marcelo T. de Alvear, the UCR candidate, using widespread and public fraud. In said elections, the UCR formulated an advanced government program, containing numerous issues in social matters and State intervention in the economy that would later be taken up again in the Declaration of Avellaneda. By the way, in the doctrinal life of radicalism in the 1930s, including sectors of the party ruling party, the ideas of the time regarding the role of the State in the economy had an important presence, as evidenced by the important magazine "Facts and Ideas".
President Ortiz began a policy of electoral sanitation, intervening in 1940 in the province of Buenos Aires -which was under the government of a man from Buenos Aires conservatism, Dr. Manuel Fresco- and making possible the triumph of the UCR in the legislative elections of 1940, reaching a majority in the Chamber of Deputies, but that process –which the UCR supported with expectation– was cut short by his illness that led to his replacement in office by the conservative vice president Ramón S. Castillo.
During the leadership of Alvear the UCR maintained an international position of questioning the fascist regimes in Italy, Nazi in Germany and communist in the Soviet Union, and participated actively in support of the Republic during the Spanish Civil War, in a national political context crossed by world warfare and ideological conflicts. On the other hand, several radical leaders were involved in the acts of corruption that characterized the Infamous Decade, in particular the negotiation of the concession of the electrical service of Buenos Aires known as the CHADE scandal.
From 1935 various internal sectors of radicalism questioned the lifting of the abstention in the 1935 Convention, arguing that it was a decision that ended up validating the illegitimate political regime of the so-called "infamous decade& #34;. Sectors opposed to the Alvearista leadership then appeared, claiming the national content of yrigoyenismo. of the UCR, among whom the Buenos Aires native Moisés Lebensohn stood out, who was beginning to develop a critical reinterpretation of the Yrigoyenista intransigence with a center-left national focus.
At the same time and with a similar nationalist and rigoyenista orientation, the FORJA Group (Fuerza de Orientación Radical de la Joven Argentina) appeared in 1935, a small group of young radicals that would have a great cultural influence on Argentine politics, particularly after its majority participation in Peronism. With slogans such as "we are a colonial Argentina, we want to be a free Argentina", FORJA was one of the first political groups to systematically denounce the economic dependence of the country, constituting one of the antecedents of the Dependency Theory, to be drawn up in the late 1950s. Under the initial direction of Juan B. Fleitas and Manuel Ortiz Pereyra, among the founding partners were Arturo Jauretche, Homero Manzi, Luis Dellepiane, Gabriel del Mazo, Atilio García Mellid, Jorge Del Rio and Dario Alessandro (father). Raúl Scalabrini Ortiz, related to and inspiring the group's ideas, was not an organic part of it, since UCR membership was required to participate.
On March 23, 1942, Marcelo T. de Alvear died, which plunged the radical leadership into frank disorientation, although they agreed on the need to form "a Popular Front" to face the imposition of the conservative candidacy of the conservative senator Robustiano Patrón Costas promoted by President Ramón S. Castillo, who replaced Roberto M. Ortiz in the presidency, after his death in 1942. Part of the negotiations to form that front they included the possibility of the candidacy of Agustín P. Justo, who died unexpectedly in March 1943, and then another sector of the radical leadership explored the possibility of offering the presidential candidacy to confront Patrón Costas with Castillo's Minister of War, General Pedro Pablo Ramirez. Aware of these lobbying, President Castillo requested the resignation of his minister, triggering the events of June 1943.
Radicalism and Peronism (1943-1955)
In 1943, for the first time in Argentine history, industrial production exceeded agricultural production. World War II had given an extraordinary boost to the development of the industry and millions of migrants from the countryside and small cities in the interior moved en masse to work in the factories, mainly those located in the suburbs of the city of Buenos Aires. The socio-economic conditions anticipated great socio-political changes.
That year the Army overthrew the last government of the so-called infamous decade to start the so-called Revolution of 43. From then on, within a heterogeneous composition of sectors and interests that were fighting within the military government, an alliance of young soldiers and socialist union leaders and revolutionary unionists emerged, organized around Colonel Juan D. Perón who, after being appointed in charge of the small Department of Labor, they would become stronger and stronger within the government. Thus, a new political-union movement began to slowly take shape, which three years later would take the name of Peronism, which would carry out a broad program of labor reforms, obtain the support of trade unionism, and win the massive support of that new working class that rapidly expanded with the industrialization of the country.
In the opposite direction, another heterogeneous movement would form, which would be known as anti-Peronism, which would bring together important military sectors, especially the Navy, business organizations (Sociedad Rural Argentina, Bolsa de Comercio, and Unión Industrial Argentina), the Argentine University Federation and all the existing political parties at that time (Radical Civic Union, Antipersonalist Radical Civic Union, National Democratic Party, Socialist Party, Progressive Democratic Party and the Communist Party). This alliance was promoted by the United States ambassador Spruille Braden.
The division between Peronism and anti-Peronism, and the positions towards both movements, will mark Argentine political life from now on, both inside and outside the political parties.
From Alvearismo to unionism
Faced with the polarization of the country in Peronism-anti-Peronism, the Radical Civic Union had a complex behavior:
- The National Committee was led by the sector Alvearista. This sector has been driving since the end of the decade an infamous policy of electoral alliances with other political forces to confront the conservative government, so it was known as union, strategy rejected by sectors that would eventually converge in intransigence, in the intention of resuming a guidelines they considered and leader.
- Some sections of the RCU would be in favour of an alliance with the Labour Party that was running for Perón, forming the Radical Civic Union Renewing Board, to which, among others, the candidate for Vice President Hortensio Quijano, former anti-personnel leader of Corrientes. FORJA also dissolved and most of its members joined Peronism.
- Already during the presidency of Perón, unionism, composed of both anti-personnel and rigoyenist leaders, would adopt a strongly anti-peronist stance, facing the new government with hardness.
- Amadeo Sabattini, who led an autonomous current based in the province of Córdoba known as SabattinistsHe had contacts with Perón to form a joint movement that did not succeed. Sabattini supported the coup of 9 October 1945, led by General Eduardo Ávalos who imprisoned Perón and was disarticulated by the mobilization of 17 October.
- Radicals intransigentwhich had been building a central-left thinking based on Yugoslav nationalism, aimed at the workers, recognized the multitudes who supported Perón as true workers, and maintained a critical position of Peronism but not polarized, supporting social measures, but questioning their non-democratic tendencies. On April 4, 1945 the intransigents began to organize themselves as an internal group with the Avellaneda Declaration, and soon after, on November 1, they constituted the Rosary the Movement of Intransigence and Renewal (MIR). There stood out young leaders such as Ricardo Balbín, Arturo Frondizi, Moses Lebensohn, Crisologist Larralde, Oscar Alende and Arturo Illia, among others.
1945 was a key year, with large demonstrations by both Peronism and anti-Peronism. Finally, the unionistas, against the opinion of the intransigents and sabattinistas, agreed to form and lead a great anti-Peronist electoral alliance that was called the Union Democratic.
In the elections of February 24, 1946, Peronism defeated the Democratic Union in all the provinces except one. The electoral defeat with the formula of the unionist radicals Tamborini and Mosca, meant the end of the alvearista and unionist hegemony in the UCR.
After the electoral defeat, the intransigent radicals aggressively criticized the role played by the alvearista-unionista leadership. In 1947, the Congress of the Intransigence and Renewal Movement included in the approved documents the following statement:
The advent of this regime was possible only by the crisis of radicalism, which brought the crisis of our democracy. His accidental directions had been removed from his historical duty. They suppressed the struggle against national and international expressions of privilege and thus favored their predominance in Argentine life. The infiltration of conservative tendencies postponed the fighting defense of the vital rights of the people's man and the demands of national development.
The diehards take the lead
In the 1946 elections, the Radical Civic Union obtained 44 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. It was called the Block of the 44 and was chaired by Ricardo Balbín and Arturo Frondizi as first vice-presidency. Given the discredit of the leadership of the UCR after the electoral defeat, the Bloc of 44 assumed the de facto leadership of the party. He supported the enactment of social laws and laws related to economic nationalism, but he opposed regulations with anti-democratic characteristics, such as those that limited freedom of expression and the press, or conferred broad powers on the police. In general, the unionist radicals questioned the actions of the intransigents in the Block of 44, considering it "collaborationist".
In 1949, the intransigents and unionists clashed again over the position to adopt in the face of the constitutional reform promoted by Peronism. The unionists proposed an attitude of frontal rejection, without attending the sessions of the Constituent Convention or swearing by the new Constitution, while the intransigents proposed attending to carry out institutional questioning juridical to the majority with which the law that enabled the reform was sanctioned. It was this last "institutional" the one that prevailed After raising opposition, the radical conventionalists withdrew. A second debate took place between intransigents and unionists, when the latter proposed that the deputies should refrain from swearing on the new constitution. Once again, the intransigent position prevailed, contrary to a rupture of the institutionality.
In the presidential elections of 1951, the Unión Cívica Radical presented the candidacy of Ricardo Balbín, accompanied by Arturo Frondizi, for vice president. Perón prevailed obtaining 4,744,803 votes, against 2,416,712 obtained by Balbín. The UCR has been criticized because, despite the fact that the women's vote had been recognized in 1947, it was the only party not to present women candidates for elective positions.
Five radical deputies were outlawed: Balbín, Ernesto Sanmartino, Mauricio Yadarola, Silvano Santander, Miguel Ángel Zavala Ortiz In the case of Balbín, the violation was followed by a criminal conviction and his detention for several months. Numerous radical leaders and militants were imprisoned and even tortured.
On the other hand, radicalism played an important role in the civil-military uprisings against Peronism and the organization of armed civilian commandos, or iron commandos, which sought the overthrow of President Perón. Several radical leaders have been accused of organizing terrorist acts during Perón's first two governments, such as the terrorist attack in the Plaza de Mayo on April 15, 1953, in which between five and seven people were killed and more than one hundred injured. Senior radical leaders, such as Miguel Ángel Zavala Ortiz, also participated in the bombing of Plaza de Mayo in 1955, in which more than three hundred and fifty people were murdered.
After the Plaza de Mayo was bombed by navy planes on June 16, 1955, with the participation of some important UCR figures, Perón tried to reach an agreement with opposition political forces, who did not prosper On that occasion, Frondizi, who had been elected president of the UCR the previous year, gave a historic speech on the national radio network on July 27, demanding the validity of political liberties. In September 1955, the Armed Forces overthrew the government of Juan D. Perón and gave rise to the self-styled Liberating Revolution. The Radical Civic Union actively supported the coup.
Division of radicalism: UCRP and UCRI (1956-1972)
On November 10, 1955, an Advisory Board of the military government was established, chaired by Admiral Isaac Rojas, and made up of representatives of the political parties with the exception of Peronism and Communism. The members representing the Radical Civic Union were the unionists Juan Gauna and Miguel Ángel Zavala Ortiz and the intransigent Oscar Alende and Oscar López Serrot.
Once Perón was overthrown, the internal bids that had been attenuated by the opposition to Peronism manifested themselves with full force, given the prospect of an electoral solution that had the UCR itself as the foreseeable winner. At the end of 1956 Frondizi, president of the National Committee, proposed declaring a candidate for president of the Nation who would put pressure on the military government to call elections. The proposal, which was supported by the majority of the Movement for Intransigence and Renewal (MIR), was approved by the National Convention meeting in Tucumán, which nominated Arturo Frondizi as the UCR candidate for president of the Nation, accompanied by Alejandro Gómez.
Faced with this decision, the balbinistas sectors of the MIR, who had opposed nominating a candidate without resorting to the direct vote of the affiliates (historic position of the MIR), together with the unionists and sabattinistas, separated from the National Committee and formed another National Committee chaired by Crisólogo Larralde under the name of Unión Cívica Radical del Pueblo (UCRP). For its part, the Frondizista sector, which had a significant youth presence, took the name of Unión Cívica Radical Intransigente (UCRI).
The UCRI defined a program inspired by the Declaration of Avellaneda with new industrialist components that would shape its adherence to developmentalism. The UCRP, for its part, more clearly identified with the Liberating Revolution, and called internal elections to define the candidates by direct vote, in which Ricardo Balbín prevailed accompanied by Santiago H. del Castillo, in alliance with Sabattini, and defeating the traditional unionism that promoted the Zavala Ortiz-Sanmartino ticket.
- Reform of the National Constitution of 1957
In 1957, elections for constituent conventions were held, with the proscription of the Peronist party. Blank votes were in the majority, reaching 23.3% of the total, followed by UCRP with 23.2%, and UCRI with 20%. Both radicalisms took different positions to the Constitutional Convention: the UCRI (Oscar Alende) maintained that the 1957 Constitutional Convention was illegal and withdrew when it found itself in a minority, while the UCRP validated the repeal of the 1949 Constitution and the restoration of the 1853 Constitution, promoting the addition of article 14 bis (Luis María Jaureguiberry), in which the rights of workers were incorporated, including the right to strike omitted in the Constitution of 1949. The Convention ended abruptly without addressing other issues when it was left without a quorum to meet due to successive withdrawals of Convention members; The 1957 reform did not incorporate other rights that were recognized in the Peronist Constitution, such as equality between men and women, university autonomy, the social function of property, and state management of public services, among other issues..
- 1958 Presidential elections
On February 23, 1958, elections were held throughout the country, with the proscription of the Peronist party, leaving then as favorites the two radical candidates: Arturo Frondizi for the UCR Intransigente (UCRI) and Ricardo Balbín for the UCR del Town (UCRP). A secret pact between Perón and Frondizi led Peronist citizens to massively support Frondizi, who triumphed with 4,049,230 votes against 2,416,408 votes obtained by Balbín, obtaining a majority in both chambers of the National Congress and the total number of votes. the provincial governments. "The result outraged a large part of the military, who considered that Frondizi had manipulated the proscription of the Peronists against the Liberating Revolution".
Government of Arturo Frondizi (1958-1962)
The Frondizi government was characterized by adopting developmentalism as the basic policy of its management. His main collaborators were Rogelio Frigerio, Gabriel del Mazo (one of the fathers of the University Reform), Roque Vítolo, and Rodolfo Martínez, and among the new governors Oscar Alende (Buenos Aires), Carlos Sylvestre Begnis (Santa Fe), Arturo Zanichelli (Córdoba), Raúl Uranga (Entre Ríos), Celestino Gelsi (Tucumán).
In order to promote the accelerated industrialization of the country, he promoted the entry of foreign industrial capital. He deepened the oil policy of opening up to foreign capital promoted by Perón since 1952, signing contracts with private companies to subsidize the exploitation of Argentine oil. He authorized the operation of private universities -a decree signed by Atilio Dell Oro Maini during the provisional government of La Libertadora- giving rise to the dispute between secular or free education.
His economic and educational policies generated great resistance among the unions and the student movement, but also among the military who carried out 26 riots and 6 coup attempts during his government. Although, on the other hand, his government period was characterized by the apparent ideological tendency towards positions closer to the structuralism advocated by US President John F. Kennedy, which led to the resignation of Vice President Alejandro Gómez.
In 1961 Frondizi repealed the laws that prohibited Peronism sanctioned by the Liberating Revolution. In the 1962 elections, Peronism won the governorship of the powerful Province of Buenos Aires, where the combative textile union leader Andrés Framini triumphed. As a consequence, the Armed Forces demanded that Frondizi annul the elections, which he did not do, triggering the coup that overthrew him on March 29, 1962.
Arturo Frondizi, still detained, promoted the creation of a front between the UCRI and Peronism, called the National and Popular Front. But a majority sector of the UCRI decided to separate from the front and present Oscar Alende as its own candidate, causing the alliance to fail. This event led to the separation of Frondizi from the UCRI and the founding of the Integration and Development Movement.
Government of José María Guido (1962-1963)
During the coup that overthrew President Frondizi, a sector of the UCRI carried out an institutional maneuver so that the Supreme Court of Justice considered that the arrest and overthrow of Frondizi constituted a case of acephaly, for which reason, according to the National Constitution corresponded to designate the president of the Chamber of Senators as the new president of the Nation. Through this maneuver, in the midst of the coup and before the coup military formally assumed power, the Supreme Court swore in the intransigent radical José María Guido as its new president.
The following day, the military coup leaders, taken by surprise, summoned Guido to the government house to examine his political intentions and establish the conditions of his power, after which they confirmed him as president of the Nation.
Following the military agenda, Guido annulled the elections, dissolved the legislature and appointed a cabinet made up of liberal conservatism figures linked to military power, such as Jorge Wehbe, Álvaro Alsogaray, José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz and Federico Pinedo.
The political crisis had aggravated the cyclical economic crisis, and it was decided to quickly and forcefully apply the well-known stabilization formula: Minister Federico Pinedo made a violent devaluation of the weight, which plunged economic activity into the marasm; although after two weeks he was replaced by the engineer Alsogaray, who had already occupied the same position with Frondizi, and continued to apply the same formulas, albeit more prudencia.José Luis Romero
Government of Arturo Illia (1963-1966)
On July 7, 1963, the presidential elections were held with Peronism outlawed again and former president Frondizi illegally detained by the military. For that reason, once again the two main candidates were radicals: Arturo Illia from the UCRP, and Oscar Alende from the UCRI. Illia won, obtaining 2,441,064 votes; in second place were the blank votes of Peronist voters and in third place UCRI, with 1,593,992 votes. The UCRP won in twelve provinces and the UCRI in four. Among the radical governors of the town were Anselmo Marini (Buenos Aires), Aldo Tessio (Santa Fe), Justo Páez Molina (Córdoba), Carlos Raúl Contín (Entre Ríos) and Benjamín Zavalía (Santiago del Estero).
Illia's cabinet sought to balance the two great internal tendencies of the UCRP, unionistas and balbinistas. The balbinista Arturo Mor Roig was elected president of the Chamber of Deputies.
Illia annulled the oil contracts signed with foreign companies by Frondizi, created the Council for the Minimum Vital and Mobile Wage, and drafted the so-called Oñativia Law of Medicines, which established serious regulations for the production of medicines by laboratories, including a principle of socialization of medicines. The law was accused of being communist by conservative sectors and is considered one of the main causes of Illia's overthrow.
In economic matters, the government of Arturo Illia implemented a strictly ECLAC development policy, which gave impetus to industrialization, with Eugenio Blanco as minister (replaced upon his death by Juan Carlos Pugliese) and a team that included Bernardo Grinspún and Roque Carranza.
The unions, the UCRI and a large part of the media were very critical of the Illia government, which also registered strong internal disagreements, especially between Illia and Vice President Perette and Foreign Minister Zavala Ortiz.
The serious institutional deterioration left Illia on the brink of overthrow. Despite this, the three years of Arturo Illia's term finally ended up leaving a remarkable economic record: the gross domestic product grew by 17.5% and industrial production rose to almost 30%.
On June 26, 1966, General Juan Carlos Onganía overthrew President Illia, giving rise to a permanent dictatorship known as the Argentine Revolution.
Argentine Revolution (1966-1973)
Protagonism of youth (1966-1970)
The military regime banned politics and dissolved political parties. With the activities of the political parties suspended, the youth, both union and university, played an active role in the recovery of political life.
In August 1966, the Córdoba student movement, led by Franja Morada, not yet fully identified with radicalism, and other student groups, carried out the first insurrection against the military government, during which Santiago Pampillón was assassinated. In 1968 a group of young radicals who were fighting against the military dictatorship formed the National Coordinating Board and defined Franja Morada as a university organization of radicalism.
A new generation of young radicals was beginning to emerge, including Luis "Changui" Cáceres, Sergio Karakachoff, Fredi Storani, Leopoldo Moreau, Marcelo Stubrin, Adolfo Stubrin, Enrique Nosiglia, Néstor Golpe, Jorge Wandelow, Facundo Suárez Lastra, Víctor de Martino, Martín and Leandro Illia, among others.
Franja Morada and the National Coordinating Board adopted a center-left national liberation program founded on the dependency theory and expressly rejected the armed struggle, which was adopted at that time by other youth sectors of Peronism, Catholicism, nationalism and the left.
In a context of increasing violence in the country and the appearance of guerrilla organizations, Franja Morada and the Coordinating Board, actively participated in the two Rosariazos and the Cordobazo, which deteriorated the power of the military dictatorship.
On May 25, 1970, the UCRP held a brief demonstration in which Balbín spoke. In June, General Onganía was removed by the Junta de Comandantes, to open a new electoral outlet.
The electoral exit (1970-1973)
Displaced Onganía in 1970, General Levingston took over, with a nationalist-developmental tendency who was supported by the UCRI.
However, most of the progressive political forces opposed the new military government and demanded a quick electoral exit. On November 11, 1970, representatives of the UCRP, Peronism, Socialism, the Bloquismo, and the Popular Conservatives came together and issued a document called “La hora del pueblo”, in which immediate elections were demanded, without exclusions, and respecting minorities. La Hora del Pueblo marked a notable change in Argentine history, because it was the first time that radicalism and Peronism acted politically together.
At that time, the UCRP was led by Ricardo Balbín and a group of leaders who followed him such as Héctor Hidalgo Solá, Arturo Mor Roig, Antonio Tróccoli, Juan Carlos Pugliese, Enrique Vanoli, Rubén Rabanal, César García Puente, Julián Sancerni Jiménez, Raúl Zarrielo, Carlos Raúl Contín, Juan Trilla, among others.
The Córdoba Line (Sabattinism) had former president Arturo Illia and Víctor Hipólito Martínez as references. In the Province of Buenos Aires, Raúl Alfonsín had begun to unite around him a group of leaders with social-democratic tendencies. Among them were Bernardo Grinspun, Roque Carranza, Germán López, Raúl Borrás, among others.
On March 21, 1971, General Lanusse assumed the presidency. Ricardo Balbín, as president of the UCRP, held talks with Lanusse to coordinate an electoral exit. The prominent balbinista radical Arturo Mor Roig was appointed Minister of the Interior, with the support of Hora del Pueblo. Mor Roig would guarantee the holding of non-fraudulent elections, but at the same time he tried to carry out a strategy of polarization between Peronism and anti-Peronism that was called the Great National Agreement (GAN) and whose objective was to avoid the triumph of the peronism. Under these conditions, the military government granted the acronym "Unión Cívica Radical" to the UCRP, and demanded that the UCRI change its name, which from then on will be called the Intransigent Party.
Between 1971 and 1972, the youth of the Coordinating Board began to get closer to Raúl Alfonsín, and alfonsinismo defined itself as an internal line of social democratic tendency, against balbinismo-unionismo, which will adopt the denomination of National Line of conservative tendency. In 1972, Franja Morada, and the National Reformist Movement (MNR) of the Popular Socialist Party (PSP), with which it formed a "bloque", won for the first time the Argentine University Federation (FUA), a student organization that from then on, he would see her driving for decades to come.
In 1972, internships were held to renew the party authorities -which remained static due to the dissolution of the parties carried out by the dictatorship- and the National Line led by Balbín prevailed over the Movement for Renewal and Change, which in the province of Buenos Aires took Raúl Alfonsín as a candidate for first delegate to the national committee. In the Buenos Aires Province Committee, Juan Carlos Pugliese from Línea Nacional beat Raúl Borrás. The same year the party candidacies were settled in view of the general elections of 1973, prevailing in the internal elections the Balbín-Gamond formula over the purple list made up of Alfonsín and Conrado Storani.
The presidential candidate would be, for the third time in the history of the UCR, Ricardo Balbín, who closed his campaign with a phrase that will have great historical significance: "the one who wins governs and the one who loses accompanies& #34;.
On March 11, 1973, in a context of growing national and international violence, the presidential elections were held: Peronism (Cámpora) obtained 5,908,414 votes (49.5%), defeating the UCR (Balbín-Gamond), with 2,537,605 votes (21.29%); Oscar Alende, candidate of the center-left Alianza Popular Revolucionaria, came fourth with 7.4% of the vote.
The return of Peronism (1973-1976)
The stage of the Peronist government was characterized by increasing political violence in a context of economic crisis and high inflation, driven by the oil crisis of 1973. Shortly after taking office, President Héctor Cámpora resigned to allow new elections in the that Perón could appear. The possibility of a Perón-Balbín formula was then opened, but the opposition, both within Peronism and radicalism, made it impossible. In the September 1973 elections, Perón obtained 62% and Balbín 25%.
During the Peronist government, balbinismo and alfonsinismo adopted opposing positions. Balbín had expressed the strategy of radicalism shortly after knowing the electoral result:
To have been at the service of a higher cause was to put aside by negative the positions of radical intransigence and anti-acuerdism. I always believed that Argentina would be in danger if subversion, guerrillas, or this violence, which functions as an indefinite protest, were allowed to flourish (...). For me, the march along the path of pacification can come to the meeting of political reason.
The balbinismo assumed a clear strategy of national unity, which was symbolized by the historic embrace between Balbín and Perón in 1972, and Balbín's speech at Perón's funeral in July 1974, in which he utters a phrase that went down in Argentine history: "This old adversary fires a friend".
The alfonsinismo took a position directly opposed to the position of balbinismo. In May 1973, the Movimiento Renovador became Movimiento de Renovación y Cambio, with a position highly critical of Balbinismo, against any agreement with Peronism, and a social-democratic left-wing program that proposed the agrarian reform, a new university reform, the democratization of trade unionism and the establishment of a social democracy.
In the internal elections, Línea Nacional obtained 42,000 votes, while Renovación y Cambio surpassed the 25% floor with 27,000 votes, thus achieving Raúl Alfonsín a place on the National Committee.
Perón's death on July 1, 1974 aggravated the general situation and brought his widow, María Estela Martínez, to the presidency, who lacked the necessary leadership to lead the country at that crossroads. Among other very serious acts of violence of the time, in 1974 Arturo Mor Roig was assassinated by the Montoneros organization.
In 1975 the division between balbinismo and alfonsinismo deepened with the adhesion of new sectors to the Movement for Renewal and Change. But by then no political sector was in a position on its own to prevent the coming collapse.
In 1975 political parties were deeply divided internally and externally; guerrilla groups united to launch an armed offensive against the democratic government; the paramilitary groups began to implement an open strategy of State Terrorism; inflation reached levels of destruction of the currency. That year there were 490 political assassinations.
On March 16, 1976, Ricardo Balbín asked the national radio and television network to give a speech in which, given the obvious imminence of a coup d'état, he stated:
Some suppose I come to give solutions. I don't have them, but there are... All incurables have cure five minutes before death.
Balbín's speech, 8 days before the military coup, has become historic and has given rise to controversy over its meaning. On March 24, 1976, the Armed Forces carried out the coup that began the National Reorganization Process.
Radicalism during the military regime (1976-1983)
Although many believed that the military government would last a few months and would limit itself to ordering the situation and calling elections, the National Reorganization Process established a regime of state terrorism that caused thousands of disappearances, tortures, and exiles. The activity of political parties was suspended.
The leadership of the Radical Civic Union, headed by balbinismo, did not openly question the Dictatorship at first, even making favorable statements. On one occasion Balbín stated:
I don't think they're missing, I think they're dead, even though I haven't seen any death certificate.
Human rights organizations harshly criticized the position of Balbinism in the face of the massive violation of human rights. For his part, the radical leader Luis Brasesco – defense lawyer for political prisoners during the 70s – has justified Balbín's contacts with the dictatorship's military, arguing that they were intended to safeguard the lives of Radical Youth militants. and Franja Morada and that he expressed that intention by saying that lives depended on his silence.
In a press conference with foreign correspondents, at the insistence of a journalist about the disappeared, Balbín said:
You take care of the dead, that they hurt me, but I take care of the living, that they will not die.
It should be mentioned that 310 mayors from radicalism were not deposed during the military government. There were other parties as well, though in considerably smaller numbers.
On December 1, 1978, a group of former legislators held a tribute dinner for General Videla. While Peronism, with the signature of its president Deolindo F. Bittel, rejected the event, the leadership of radicalism attended in full: Ricardo Balbín, Juan Carlos Pugliese, Rodolfo García Leyenda, Rubén Rabanal, Antonio Tróccoli, Francisco Rabanal, Carlos Raúl Contin, Juan Trilla, Cándido Tello Rojas and Aldo Tessio. The meeting was also officially attended by the Communist Party, and some Peronists against the PJ resolution. On the other hand, Luis León, Fernando de la Rúa, Carlos Perette and Raúl Alfonsín did not attend.
The alfonsinismoon the contrary, it maintained an active position against the dictatorship and in defense of the validity of human rights. Raúl Alfonsín had been a founding member in 1975 of the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights (APDH), which played an important role during the military regime and sponsored habeas corpus resources to determine the situation of the disappeared, at a time when that activity was the cause of disappearance. The Morada Strip and the Coordinating Board maintained the base militancy throughout the military regime, and in particular preserved the existence of the Argentine University Federation, led first by Marcelo Marcó and then by Roberto Vázquez. One of the founders of the Coordinating Board and member of the APDH, Sergio Karakachoff was kidnapped on September 10, 1976 and then killed.
When it was evident that the Dictatorship's plan was for a violent perpetuation in power, Balbín took a more openly critical position:
The president of the national table of the UCR, Ricardo Balbín, raised to General Albano Harguindegui the need for "to launch the process of reconstruction of democracy and the immediate lifting of the restrictive fence" for political activity. He also pointed out that Balbín explained "problem of human rights, the disappeared, of political prisoners at the disposal of the executive branch"and got a silence for an answer.
In July 1981 the Radical Civic Union, at the initiative of Balbín, called together Peronism and three other political parties, to form the Multipartidaria, which played an important role in the exhaustion of the military government. Shortly after, Ricardo Balbín died and the UCR was left under the command of the balbinista Carlos Contín.
The positions of balbinismo and alfonsinismo crossed again in the face of the Malvinas War. Carlos Contín, on behalf of the UCR, maintained in the Multipartidaria that during the war the demands for democratization had to be postponed. Alfonsín, on the contrary, with the advice of intellectuals such as Dante Caputo, Jorge Federico Sabato and Jorge Roulet, went together Arturo Illia, one of the few political leaders who did not express his support and maintained a reticent attitude towards the seizure of the islands by the military government.
After the defeat in the Falklands War, in June 1982, the military regime collapsed and proceeded in a disorganized manner to open an electoral solution. In the electoral process, Raúl Alfonsín, with a moderately social-democratic proposal and, above all, a message condemning political violence and the violation of human rights, and rejecting the self-amnesty of the military, the party leadership won against the National Line and then he was proclaimed candidate for president, in a formula completed by Víctor H. Martínez.
On October 30, 1983, in a surprise result, Alfonsín obtained 51.7% of the vote against Ítalo Luder's 40.1% and was elected president of the Nation. The UCR also triumphed in 7 of the 23 provinces: Buenos Aires (Alejandro Armendáriz), Córdoba (Eduardo César Angeloz), Mendoza (Santiago Felipe Llaver), Entre Ríos (Sergio Montiel), Río Negro (Osvaldo Álvarez Guerrero), Chubut (Atilio Viglione) and Missions (Ricardo Barrios Arrechea). On December 10, 1983, the new democratic authorities took office.
Presidency of Raúl Alfonsín (1983-1989)
Human rights, transition to democracy and military uprisings
The Alfonsín government had to face the problem of the transition to democracy in a country with a long tradition of military governments that had reached the tragedy of state terrorism and war. His presidency was marked by three fundamental events related to the ended military dictatorship: the trial of its leaders, the human rights policy, and the military uprisings he faced.
On December 15, 1983, decrees 157 and 158 were sanctioned. The first ordered the prosecution of the leaders of the guerrilla organizations ERP and Montoneros; and for the second, to prosecute the three military juntas that led the country from the military coup of March 24, 1976 until the Malvinas War. On the same day, it created a National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP), made up of independent personalities (Ernesto Sabato, Magdalena Ruiz Guiñazú, Graciela Fernández Meijide, among others) with the mission of surveying, documenting, and recording cases and evidence of violations of human rights, to found the trial of the military juntas.
In September 1984 CONADEP produced its famous report entitled Nunca Más. On October 4, 1984, the Federal Chamber (civilian court) made the decision to move the military court that was prosecuting the juntas to take charge of it directly. The prosecutors were Julio César Strassera and Luis Moreno Ocampo. The trial of the juntas took place between April 22 and August 14, 1985. On December 9, the sentence was handed down condemning Jorge Rafael Videla and Eduardo Massera to life imprisonment, Roberto Viola to 17 years in prison, Armando Lambruschini to 8 years in prison and Orlando Ramón Agosti to 4 years in prison. Due to its characteristics, the condemnation of the military juntas carried out by a democratic government constitutes an unprecedented event in the world, which contrasted sharply with the negotiated transitions that took place in those years in Uruguay, Chile, Brazil, Spain, Portugal and South Africa.
The Alfonsín government was permanently threatened by sectors of the Armed Forces that refused to accept prosecution for human rights violations during the previous military regime. To try to keep discontent in the Armed Forces under control, in 1986 Alfonsín had to intervene personally so that Congress sanctioned the Full Stop Law, imposing a 60-day term to prosecute those accused of crimes against humanity committed during the military government.
In Holy Week of 1987 there was a large military rebellion led by young officers who were called “carapintadas”. At the same time that the military chiefs showed that they were not willing to obey the orders of President Alfonsín and suppress the insurrection, millions of people took to the streets to oppose the military uprising. For several days the country was on the brink of civil war. Finally Alfonsín, without military power to stop a coup, negotiated with the military leaders new measures to avoid trials against his comrades. This is how the Law of Due Obedience was sanctioned in 1987, although this was not enough to prevent another two military insurrections during 1988 (January 18 and December 1) and a permanent state of insubordination of the Armed Forces.
In 2019, the radical Oscar Aguad officially established a new position against the carapintadas uprisings, in his capacity as Defense Minister of the government of Mauricio Macri, leader of the Cambiemos alliance, of which the UCR was one of the three central parties. Aguad downplayed the severity of the uprisings. Carapintadas was a "small event":
Aldo Rico's with the snails is old history, I don't think we have to get it out, it happened... It was a small event in history and had no implication, I don't think it has put democracy in check.Oscar Aguad
Government work
During the Alfonsín government, the university autonomy and co-government broken in the universities in 1966 were reestablished, the National Literacy Plan and the National Food Plan (PAN) were put into operation, and the parental rights laws were sanctioned shared (1985) and linked divorce (1987). In 1987, Congress approved a law to transfer the Federal Capital to Viedma - Carmen de Patagones, as part of a project to change the centralist political-economic axis that characterizes Argentina, which ended up failing.
An extensive study was also undertaken for a constitutional reform that would modernize the political structure of the country, giving rise to an attenuation of the "caudillo" that historically existed in Argentina, promoting an attenuated parliamentarism or semi-presidentialism. Although the reform did not materialize due to a lack of political consensus, the study served as the basis for some of the changes in the 1994 constitutional reform.
At the international level, in charge of Foreign Minister Dante Caputo, the following stood out:
- agreements with the democratic governments of Brazil and Uruguay that gave rise to Mercosur;
- The signing of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship with Chile (1985), which ended a boundary dispute with that country, with which Argentina was about to go to a war in 1978;
- the Argentine prominence in the impulse to the Contadora Group to promote peace in the region;
- the constitution of the Cartagena Group to promote a joint action of debtors against creditors in the treatment of external debt.
In the economic area, Alfonsín took office at a time when the great world debt crisis was taking place. During the military government, the external debt had grown from 7,875 million dollars in 1976, to 45,087 million dollars in 1983. Additionally, a large part of the productive apparatus, especially in the industrial sector, had gone bankrupt. Faced with this situation, Alfonsín decided to apply an economic plan in 1985, the Austral Plan, which he himself described as "war economy".
The Austral Plan managed to contain inflation for a time, but it could not solve the structural problems that the Argentine economy and the State showed in those years. The serious economic problems were expressed in an inflation rate of 343% for the year 1988 and the outbreak of a hyperinflationary process from February 1989 of more than 3,000% per year, which increased poverty until it reached a historical record until then.: 47.3% (October 1989, Greater Buenos Aires).
On the other hand, the wage freeze, Alfonsín's initial decision to attack the unions and the persistence of the fascist union law sanctioned by the dictatorship, led to a long struggle between the radical government and the CGT that expressed in 13 general strikes, and ended with the radical government negotiating with the unions and sanctioning a new Union Law with parliamentary unanimity.
Under these conditions, the presidential elections of May 14, 1989 were held, in which the opposition candidate, the Peronist Carlos Menem, won with 47.49% (7,953,301 votes), who won by just over 10 points to the official candidate of the UCR, the governor of the province of Córdoba Eduardo Angeloz, who obtained 37.04%, that is, 6,161,494 votes. The magnitude of the economic and social chaos forced Alfonsín to anticipate the transfer of command, resigning on July 8. With the handover of power from Alfonsín to Menem, for the first time since 1916, a succession took place in Argentina between two constitutional presidents from different political parties.
The 90s
After a few months of indecision, Menem began a government following the policies of the Washington Consensus, elaborated a few months before, completed with a system of convertibility of the peso that produced a historic reduction in inflation.
In the 1991 general elections, the Radical Civic Union obtained 29% of the votes for national deputies (less than in 1989). The negative electoral results forced Alfonsín to leave the presidency of the National Committee. He replaced him with Mario Losada, a man he trusted.
In 1992, contrary to the negative trend that was affecting the UCR, Fernando de la Rúa, a non-Alfonsinista radical with moderate tendencies, was elected senator with 50% of the votes in the City of Buenos Aires against the Peronist candidate Avelino Porto.
During the presidency of Carlos Menem, the UCR faced the privatization policy faced by the government. At the end of 1993 the party's national committee again elected Alfonsín as president. At that time Alfonsín was secretly negotiating with Menem an agreement to reform the National Constitution that was known as the Pact of Olivos. It was approved a few days later by the committee. However, some important leaders of the UCR such as Fernando de la Rúa spoke out completely against the Pact of Olivos and the constitutional reform.
The Pact of Olivos was an agreement to reform the National Constitution but establishing basic guidelines on the conditions of Menem's re-election in addition to other contents of the constitutional reform. The Constituent Convention met in the City of Santa Fe between May and August 1994 and produced the important Constitutional Reform of 1994 in which forty-three articles were modified.
The Pact of Olivos had a very negative impact on the UCR, which in the elections for conventional constituents obtained the lowest percentage in its history up to then (19.9%), even winning in the four provinces it governed (Córdoba, Chubut, Rio Negro and Catamarca).
Having rejected Eduardo Angeloz a new presidential candidacy to face Menem, at the end of 1994 the radical affiliates chose the governor of Río Negro Horacio Massaccesi as their candidate for president, over Federico Storani from Buenos Aires.
In the 1995 presidential elections, the UCR obtained 17% (2,956,87 votes), relegated to third place for the first time in history in a presidential election. In second place was FREPASO with the Bordón-Álvarez formula and 29.3% (5,095,929 votes). At the end of the year Rodolfo Terragno was elected president of the National Committee and Federico Storani president of the bloc of national deputies.
Since 1996, the UCR has been a full member of the Socialist International, being together with the Socialist Party (Argentina) the only two Argentine political parties affiliated with this entity. He came to occupy his vice presidency in the hands of Raúl Alfonsín, who was proposed as president, although ultimately without success.[citation required] That year Fernando de la Rúa was elected as the first chief Government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires. A year later, in 1997, the UCR formed an electoral agreement (known as "La Alianza") together with FREPASO, which triumphed in the parliamentary elections of that same year. At the end of the year Fernando de la Rúa agreed to the presidency of the National Committee.
The Alliance triumphed in the presidential elections of October 24, 1999 with 48.37% (9,167,1261 votes), seconded by the ruling party Duhalde with 38.27% (7,253,909 votes). Fernando de la Rúa took office as President of the Nation on December 10 of that same year.
Presidency of Fernando de la Rúa (1999-2001)
The government of Fernando de la Rúa showed from the outset a hard confrontation between the internal factions of the Alliance, particularly between the most conservative sectors that supported the president, and the center-left sectors linked to Alfonsín and FREPASO.
In 2000, a scandal broke out over a complaint of bribery by the government to senators to sanction the Labor Reform Law, which led to the resignation of Vice President Carlos "Chacho" Álvarez denouncing lack of support to investigate the complaint. Little by little, the other members of FREPASO and Alfonsinismo were being displaced from the government.
From the year 2000 the economic situation worsened considerably. In March 2001, the Minister of Economy, José Luis Machinea, an Alfonsinista, was replaced by the until then Defense Minister, Ricardo López Murphy, a conservative radical close to the president, who was forced to resign just two weeks later due to to the popular demonstrations organized against him by student groups and political movements, including the Purple Strip and FREPASO, in the face of the cut to the education budget promoted by López Murphy. De la Rúa then appointed Domingo Cavallo, the emblematic Minister of Economy of Carlos Menem, as Economy Minister.
Since February 2001, some sectors began to consider that the convertibility regime could not be sustained and throughout the year there was a strong flight of foreign currency abroad, which was covered with Argentine reserves and a large external indebtedness, supported by in the exceptional financial backing granted by the International Monetary Fund with the apparent purpose of preventing the Argentine crisis from spreading to other countries.
On October 14, the legislative elections were held, in a context of serious economic and social crisis. The difficulties experienced by President De la Rúa became visible when he was unable to present his own candidates. The main result of the election was the magnitude of the so-called "vote anger", an intentional and massive use of blank votes by a broad sector of the citizenry, which was the majority in Santa Fe (40%) and the Federal Capital (28%), Río Negro and Tierra del Fuego and second in the Province of Buenos Aires (24%) where Peronism won.
After the elections, De la Rúa was greatly weakened. Claudio Loser, Head of the Western Hemisphere Department of the International Monetary Fund at that time, recounts that it was then decided to end the financing and give Argentina two options: devalue or dollarize.
On December 8, the government imposed the "corralito", a regime that prevented the population from withdrawing funds deposited in banks, forcing them to make payments through bank transactions, which seriously affected the middle sectors and informal workers who made up half of the employed population. The social situation then became explosive, reaching a peak of looting and excesses on December 19. That night, President De la Rúa announced on television that he was imposing a state of siege and minutes later a poblada began, banging pots in protest, called for that reason el Cacerolazo, and which was characterized by the massive presence of sectors of the middle class as well as workers and picketers who took to the streets to demand "that they all go away". On December 20, the President de la Rúa resigned.
After 2001
After the resignation of President de la Rúa, the Radical Civic Union entered a process of deep crisis and fragmentation. Despite this, the UCR maintained a considerable parliamentary force, which in 2002 added 65 deputies (25.3%) and 21 senators (29.2%). At the end of 2001 Ángel Rozas, governor of Chaco, had been elected president of the National Committee, a position in which he was reelected until 2005.
From 2003 to 2006
In December 2002, the internal election to define the presidential candidate of the UCR was held, which was won by Leopoldo Moreau and Mario Losada, but was questioned by Rodolfo Terragno, the other candidate. In the presidential elections of April 27, 2003, the UCR obtained just 2.34% (equivalent to 453,360 votes), a catastrophic result and placing it in sixth place. In turn, the presidential candidacies of the ex-radicals Ricardo López Murphy with Recrear and Elisa Carrió with ARI, obtained 16.37% (3,173,475 votes) Murphy, remaining as the third formula, and 14.05% (2,1723,574 votes). Carrió, practically occupying fourth place.
Despite its national crisis, the Radical Civic Union seemed to have consolidated and even strengthened provincial situations. In 2003 radicalism won in Tierra del Fuego (Mario Jorge Colazo), and retained the governorates of Río Negro (Miguel Saiz), Chaco (Abelardo Roy Nikisch), Mendoza (Julio César Cobos), Catamarca (Eduardo Brizuela del Moral with the Frente Civic and Social).
At the beginning of 2005, the radicalism of Santiago del Estero, led by Gerardo Zamora, organized a Civic Front that defeated Peronism, after the federal intervention that ended the questioned regime of the Juárez couple. Shortly after, the UCR would organize a front with Peronist sectors in Corrientes, prevailing in the elections for governor and the radical Arturo Colombi being elected.
In the parliamentary elections of October 23, 2005, the UCR once again had a lackluster result at the national level, reducing its presence in Parliament to 35 deputies (13%) and 13 senators (18%). The strength of its local enclaves confirmed the UCR as the second parliamentary and electoral force in the country, ruling in 611 municipalities and in 7 of the 23 provinces: Catamarca, Corrientes, Chaco, Mendoza, Río Negro, Santiago del Estero and Tierra del Fuego. This last province was lost by the UCR after the radical governor began to support President Kirchner and was removed on December 2, 2005.
At the end of 2005, the party authorities were renewed, with former Mendoza governor Roberto Iglesias being elected as President of the National Committee and Margarita Stolbizer from Buenos Aires as General Secretary.
The opposition between a weak party at the national level, and a competitive one at the local level, opened a scenario of internal conflict within the UCR, threatening its rupture. On the one hand, a sector appeared in which were the governors Arturo Colombi (Corrientes), Miguel Saiz (Río Negro), Julio Cobos (Mendoza) and Eduardo Brizuela del Moral (Catamarca), and the mayors Enrique García (Vicente López), Gustavo Posse (San Isidro), Daniel Katz (Mar del Plata) and Horacio Quiroga (Neuquén), holding a position of agreement with the government of Peronist President Néstor Kirchner. This sector became known as Radicals K (Kirchnerists).
In the opposite sense, the national authorities of the UCR headed by Roberto Iglesias and Adolfo Stubrin, presidents of the Committee and the National Convention, respectively, maintained a position of firm opposition to the Kirchner government. Simultaneously, Raúl Alfonsín promoted an electoral coalition taking as presidential candidate Roberto Lavagna, former Minister of Economy under Eduardo Duhalde and Néstor Kirchner, and who was also Alfonsín's Secretary of Foreign Trade. Lavagna would also be supported by Eduardo Duhalde.
On August 25 and 26, the radicalismo held the regular meeting of the National Convention in Rosario, without the presence of the Radicals K. There, a strong opposition position was affirmed and its president Roberto Iglesias was entrusted with initiating contacts with political and social sectors related to the party to build an alternative to the ruling party in the 2007 elections. This was seen as a platform where the candidate for president would be the former Minister of Economy Roberto Lavagna. The convention resolved that the UCR should seek to form an electoral coalition to confront the ruling party, seeking programmatic coincidences with forces compatible with the radical ideology.
Unable to overcome the divisions that separated the party (kirchneristas, lavagnistas, carrioristas and supporters of presenting their own candidate), Roberto Iglesias resigned from the presidency of the National Committee on November 14, 2006, rejecting the possibility of allying with the ex-minister and supporting the position of presenting a candidate from the UCR.
From 2007 to 2010
On March 24, 2007, the National Convention meeting in Avellaneda supported the presidential candidacy of Roberto Lavagna, being the first non-partisan presidential candidate in the history of the UCR, in an electoral alliance called Agreement for «An Advanced Nation». The formula was completed by Senator Gerardo Morales from Jujuy, who had replaced Iglesias as president of the National Committee. The party decision was opposed by a group of radical Buenos Aires leaders led by Margarita Stolbizer, who broke away from the UCR to form the GEN (Generation for a National Meeting), which nominated Stolbizer as a candidate for governor of Buenos Aires for the Civic Coalition, led by Elisa Carrió.
In the elections of October 28, the alliance An Advanced Nation (Lavagna-Morales), came third with 16.9% of the votes, preceded by the Front for Victory (44.9%) and the Coalition Civic (23.0%). In the elections for deputies, the UCR obtained 14 deputies (it had to renew 21), reducing its bench to 30 members (out of a total of 257) in the Chamber of Deputies, but maintaining itself as the second block. In the senator elections, it reduced its bench in the Chamber of Senators to 10 members (out of a total of 72) and remained the second block. Finally, in 2007, the UCR won in four provinces: Catamarca (Eduardo Brizuela del Moral, radical K), Corrientes (Arturo Colombi, radical K), Misiones (Maurice Closs, radical K), Río Negro (Miguel Saiz, radical K). To these governorships is added Santiago del Estero (Gerardo Zamora, radical K), won in 2005. In 2007, the radical K Julio Cobos was also elected Vice President of the Nation, which is why he was expelled from the party.
In the context of the employers' agricultural strike in Argentina in 2008, the UCR supported the position of the organizing rural associations. In the parliamentary votes that took place due to the conflict, the members of the radical bloc voted against resolution 125/2008, the repeal of which the rural producers were demanding. Among the radical senators who voted in the Senate, the radical negative vote K for Santiago del Estero Emilio Alberto Rached stood out, with which the vote was tied at 36 votes per side. Because of this, by constitutional provision, the vice president of the Nation Julio Cobos, radical K. Cobos, had to break the tie. He voted against the government project, thus causing his parliamentary defeat, using the following words: “let history judge me. I apologize if I'm wrong. My vote is not positive, my vote is against."
The vice president's rejection of the official project of mobile withholdings precipitated the rupture of the alliance between the "radicals K" and the Peronist government, called "Concertación Plural".
Cobos's popularity increased after said vote, even becoming a possible presidential candidate in the 2011 elections. His expulsion for life was later revoked, although his reinstatement to the UCR would only take place once conclude his term as vice president. On March 2, the Governor of Corrientes (Arturo Colombi) opened the regular session with a message in which he criticized the policy of President Cristina Kirchner and asked the local opposition not to & #34;hinder" his management On March 8, 2009, the governor of Catamarca celebrated his victory in the legislative elections together with the president of the UCR, Senator Gerardo Morales from Jujuy, and denounced a campaign against him for wanting to return to orthodox radicalism.
The death of former radical president Raúl Alfonsín, which occurred on March 31, 2009, renewed the enthusiasm for radicalism in a large portion of the population and boosted the image of his son (Ricardo Alfonsín), who would be a candidate for national deputy. This event also contributed to the unification of the party after the divisions that occurred in previous years.
The UCR ran in the 2009 legislative elections as part of the Civic and Social Agreement, with the Civic Coalition and the Socialist Party. In those elections, the Civic and Social Agreement obtained 30.7% of the total votes throughout the country, slightly behind the ruling party, which reached 31.2%. In Mendoza, the radicalismo obtained its most resounding victory by beating the PJ by more than 20 points difference.
After a series of disagreements between its main leaders, the Civic and Social Agreement began to disintegrate with the departure of Elisa Carrió from the front, which occurred in August 2010.
From 2011 to 2014
At the end of 2010, Vice President Julio Cobos and National Representative Ricardo Alfonsín were emerging as UCR presidential pre-candidates. To these is added, in January 2011, as third party in the dispute for the presidential candidacy, the national senator for Mendoza and president of the party's National Committee, Ernesto Sanz.
On January 25, during a meeting of the board of the National Committee of the UCR, Sanz and Alfonsín agreed to hold an open internal election on April 30 to determine the candidate for the presidency; They argued that it was not convenient to wait until the August primaries to define the candidate. Vice President Cobos, on the other hand, did not agree with this early internship, since he preferred to run in the primaries.
In that meeting, in addition, the former governor of the Chaco province, Ángel Rozas, took office as president of the party, since Sanz requested a license from that position to dedicate himself to the electoral campaign.
The internships called for April were not carried out due to Ernesto Sanz's decision not to show up for them. Finally, after Ricardo Alfonsín's party proclamation as UCR candidate, Julio Cobos declined his presidential candidacy.
Although the intention of the UCR was to create a center-left space (referred to as the "progressive front") that would be made up of the GEN of Margarita Stolbizer and the Socialist Party led by Hermes Binner; This attempt failed due to the approach of Ricardo Alfonsín to the dissident Peronist Francisco de Narváez, which was rejected by the other forces, considering that there were no programmatic coincidences with this deputy with a Menemist past.
Finally, the radicalismo opted to complete Ricardo Alfonsín's candidacy for the presidency with Javier González Fraga as vice, an economist of liberal ideology, and with De Narváez, leader of Unión Celeste y Blanco, as candidate for governor for the province of Buenos Aires, in a center alliance called "Union for Social Development". This political force made security issues, investment attraction, inflation control and economic growth in the agricultural sector its main electoral proposals.
In the primary elections held on August 14, the Alfonsín-González Fraga formula obtained 12.20% (2,614,211 votes), placing second behind Cristina Fernández who obtained 50.24%. In the presidential elections of October 23, Ricardo Alfonsín obtained third place with 11.14% (2,443,016 votes), behind Cristina Fernández (54.11%) and the socialist Hermes Binner (16.81). adverse results, the UCR recovered after 12 years the administration of the city of Córdoba (second city of the country), with the triumph of Ramón Javier Mestre. On December 16, 2011, the former mayor of the City of Santa Fe, Mario Barletta, was elected as the new head of the National Committee.
In the 2013/2015 period, he was a member of the Frente Amplio UNEN, an electoral coalition with the Socialist Party of Argentina. He came to have Julio Cobos, Hermes Binner, Ernesto Sanz and Fernando Solanas as pre-candidates for president in the 2015 elections, until the front dissolved in 2015.
In the 2013 legislative elections, the UCR won the province of Mendoza alone and, as part of the Progressive, Civic and Social Front, won the provinces of Santa Fe, Santa Cruz, Jujuy, Catamarca and Corrientes. She also made a good choice in two other important districts, going alone in the province of Córdoba and coming second with 22.6% (4 points behind the first) and forming part of the UNEN front in the City of Buenos Aires where she also came second with 32.2% (just two points behind the winner).
2015 to present
At the beginning of 2015, radicalism governed the province of Corrientes (Ricardo Colombi) and also, as part of the Progressive, Civic and Social Front, the province of Santa Fe, whose lieutenant governor (Jorge Henn) is radical. In addition, the UCR had in its possession the municipalities of eight provincial capitals (San Salvador de Jujuy, Resistencia, Córdoba, Santa Fe, Mendoza, Neuquén, Viedma and Ushuaia). It was the second Argentine political party with the largest number of affiliates, counting at the end of 2012 with 2,246,013 members, behind the Justicialista Party.
In view of the 2015 Argentine presidential elections, the UCR met the National Convention in Gualeguaychú on March 15 of that year. There, two positions of alliances for the presidential elections, presented respectively by Ernesto Sanz and Julio Cobos, faced each other.
Sanz proposed abandoning the Frente Amplio UNEN and reaching an agreement with the PRO and the Civic Coalition to present a non-Peronist front in the elections with a center-right tendency. This position was supported among others by Federico Storani, Juan Nosigla, Walter Ceballos, Mario Negri, Ramón Mestre, Oscar Aguad, Atilio Benedetti, Alfredo Cornejo, Julio Martínez, Eduardo Brizuela del Moral, Miguel Nanni, Ricardo Colombi, Juan Carlos Marino, Juan Jure, Rodolfo Suárez, Rodolfo Terragno, Facundo Suárez Lastra, Ricardo Buryaile, Aída Ayala and Daniel Salvador among others.
Cobos proposed creating a large non-Kirchnerist front that would include Sergio Massa's Frente Renovador, the PRO, the Socialist Party and the GEN, among others. For this proposal it was important not to compromise the ideology of the UCR by making an agreement of liberal conservatism, while not facilitating the territorial insertion of the PRO at the expense of the UCR. This position was supported by Ricardo Alfonsín, Gerardo Morales, José Cano, Federico Sciurano, Fabián Rogel, Miguel Ángel Bazze, Laura Montero, Eduardo Costa, Nito Artaza, Ángel Rozas, Roy Nikisch, Alicia Azula, Juan Manuel Casella, Ricardo Gil Lavedra, Enrique Vaquie, Mario Abad, Francisco Torroba, Daniel Kroneberger, Luis Naidenoff, Luis Sacca, Ariel García, Manuel Garrido, Silvia Elías de Pérez, Guillermo Galván, Cachi Gutiérrez, Jorge Henn and Carlos Fascendini among others.
The National Convention approved Ernesto Sanz's proposal. A few days later, the UCR formed an alliance called Cambiemos with the PRO led by Mauricio Macri and the Civic-ARI Coalition led by Elisa Carrió.
After the defeat at the National Convention, Julio Cobos resigned his presidential candidacy, alleging the lack of support from the entire UCR and rejecting the alliance with Mauricio Macri's PRO.
In the primary elections held on August 9, 2015, the Cambiemos front decided to take Mauricio Macri, of the PRO, as its presidential candidate, obtaining 80.7% of the votes, while Ernesto Sanz, the pre-presidential candidate presented, was defeated. for the UCR, which obtained 11.4%, and Elisa Carrió of the Civic Coalition-ARI, which came third with 7.7%. In this way and for the first time since 1936 the UCR did not integrate a presidential formula.
In the 2015 presidential elections, the Cambiemos Front obtained 34% of the votes, coming second two points behind the Front for Victory, with a second round to be held on November 22 to settle the presidential election between both forces, which it was won by Cambiemos, consecrating Mauricio Macri president of the Nation. In this way, the UCR returned to integrate the political force elected to assume the Executive Power for the third time since 1983 and for the eleventh time in history -counting all the radical parties-, although on this occasion without integrating the presidential formula (there were no integrated the formula in 1931).
The legislative elections allowed the UCR to integrate a block of 38 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, losing its status as the second minority to be the third behind the allied block of the PRO. In the Chamber of Senators, the UCR was made up of a block of eight senators (plus one from the Frente Cívico y Social de Catamarca block, since the representative of that block Oscar Castillo belongs to the UCR), being the second minority.
In the elections for provincial authorities, the UCR participated in provincial electoral fronts that they won in four provinces: Mendoza, Jujuy, Santa Fe, and the Province of Buenos Aires. In the first two, the governor belonged to the UCR (Alfredo Cornejo and Gerardo Morales and in the last two the vice-government (Carlos Fascendini and Daniel Salvador) corresponded to radicalism.To these four provinces is added Corrientes, where the UCR had led the winning front in 2013, with Ricardo Colombi.
The UCR also obtained the municipalities of Paraná (Entre Ríos), San Salvador de Jujuy (Jujuy), Santa Rosa (La Pampa) and Río Gallegos (Santa Cruz), as well as several ministries and other dependencies in the Argentine State. Since December 4, 2015, José Manuel Corral has been president of the National Committee of the Radical Civic Union.
In 2023 he joined Juntos Somos Río Negro, thus leaving Juntos por el Cambio for the first time in a province
Political ideology
His political doctrines have emerged from Argentine federalism, Alsinista autonomism and Spanish Krausism; And although radicalism since 1996 has positioned itself in the center-left, joining the Socialist International, it is also a party in which different ideologies have coexisted throughout its existence: center-left, center-right, right, nationalist, and liberal. It is also common for Argentine radicalism to be identified with populism, although in many cases the characterization as populist has a derogatory and ethnocentric bias.
Party symbols
The Radical Civic Union has two symbols: the shield and the march. It is also identified with the white beret and more recently with the logo.
The shield of the Unión Cívica Radical is its official emblem, adopted in 1931. Its general shape is inspired by the shield of Argentina: a central oval divided into two fields (light blue and white), surrounded by laurels and crowned by a rising Sun. The radical shield is ovoid in shape and instead of two, it is divided into three fields. In the upper and lower fields, it adopts the red color, taken from the federal tradition (in Argentina the civil wars confronted unitaries and federals, the first identified with the color light blue and the second with the color red), while the central field is white., with the initials UCR in black.
Instead of laurels, the ovoid is surrounded by ears of wheat, representative of the fertility of the Argentine soil and raw material for the production of bread.
At the same time and in a similar way to the light blue and white ribbon that unites the laurels of the Argentine shield, the ears of wheat of the radical shield are joined at their base by a hammer and a feather. They represent the union of culture and work, as well as manual work and intellectual work.
Gabriel del Mazo, historian and leader of radicalism at the time the shield was designed, explains the meaning of both figures in this way:
A hammer and a feather, that is to say the symbols of urban work there solidarized, because we are all workers of our works and we all work at once with the hands and intelligence, so be the writer and the electrician (...) represent culture and work. The emblem thus expresses an aspiration of the Republic: work to achieve and sustain culture, culture accompanying work, to dignify it by printing human and national meaning.Gabriel del Mazo
The Radical March, considered the party anthem, takes part from the music of the well-known work Il bersagliere (The Rifleman) by the Italian composer Edoardo Boccalari (1859-1921), while the Lyrics are a modified version of an old Federal Party march. The federal version and the radical version are as follows:
Go ahead, feds.
Go on without ceasing,
Viva Juan Manuel de Rosas
And the Federal PartyGo ahead radical,
Go on without ceasing,
Viva Hipólito Yrigoyen
And the Radical Party.
The white beret: it is an outfit frequently used by radicals in their acts, in allusion to the emblem that was used during the Revolution of the Park, in 1890.
The logo is a stylization of the shield designed in 2010, which consists of a circle with red and white stripes and the initials of the UCR. the symbolic simplification of the logo has been interpreted as a manifestation of the loss of the historical principles of radicalism expressed in the shield.
In 1983 the National Electoral Justice assigned the UCR number 3 in the list of political parties, and under that list Raúl Alfonsín was elected president. Since then the "List 3" (and its physical representation using a variant of the V-shaped fingers adding the thumb) has become an identity sign. As the number is only used when the UCR presents itself (at the national or district level) alone, that is, without forming a front with another political force, the List 3 symbol is usually used to to highlight (or to claim) the identity and radical ideological purity of a ticket.
Districts
| District | Chairman | Provincial Alliance | Affiliates |
|---|---|---|---|
 Buenos Aires
| Maximilian Abbot | Together | 646098 |
 City of Buenos Aires
| Mariela Coletta | Together for Change | 110952 |
 Catamarca
| Francisco Monti | Together for Change | 44403 |
 Chaco
| Juan Carlos Polini | Chaco Cambia + JxC | 83605 |
 Chubut
| Jacqueline C. Caminoa | Together for Change Chubut | 29304 |
 Córdoba
| Marcos Carasso | Together for Change | 220333 |
 Current
| Ricardo Colombi | ECO + Come Current | 67259 |
 Between Rios
| Jorge Monge | Together for Entre Ríos | 56816 |
 Formosa
| Martín Hernández | Together for Free Formosa | 27407 |
 Jujuy
| Alberto Bernis | Cambia Jujuy | 33319 |
 The Pampa
| July Beijing | Together for Change | 9939 |
 La Rioja
| Cristina Adriana Salzwedel | JxC - Cambia La Rioja | 14063 |
 Mendoza
| Tadeo García Zalazar | Cambia Mendoza | 100887 |
 Missions
| Ricardo Andersen | Together for Change + | 45920 |
 Neuquén
| Juan Peláez | Cambia Neuquén | 9345 |
 Black River
| Javier Acevedo | Together we are Río Negro | 39099 |
 Balance
| Miguel Nanni | Together for Change + | 32411 |
 San Juan
| Antonio Falcón | Together for Change | 18767 |
 San Luis
| Jorge Lucero | No coalition | 22876 |
 Santa Cruz
| Daniel Gardonio | Cambia Santa Cruz | 11498 |
 Santa Fe
| Felipe Michlig | Together for Change | 172146 |
 Santiago del Estero
| Mario Fiad/Andrés Lombardi (interventor) | Together for Change | 26204 |
 Land of Fire
| Liliana Martínez Allende | Together for Change T. of Fire | 4519 |
 Tucumán
| Roberto Sánchez | Together for Change JxC | 52094 |
| Total | 1879253 | ||
Election results
Presidential Elections
| Year | Formula | First round | Second round | Electoral vote | Outcome | Note | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chairman | Vice-Chairman | votes | % | votes | % | votes | % | |||||||
| 1892 | Bernardo de Irigoyen | Juan M. Garro | No data | 5/232 |
|  No electorate | ||||||||
| 1898 | No Candidate | Lino D. Churruarín | No data | 1/300 |
| No electorate | ||||||||
| No Candidate | Emilio Gouchón | No data | 1/300 |
| No electorate | |||||||||
| 1904 | No Candidate | Juan José Romero | No data | 6/300 |
| No electorate | ||||||||
| 1910 | No Candidate | Manuel María de Iriondo | No data | 1/300 |
| No electorate | ||||||||
| 1916 | Hippolyte Yrigoyen | Pelagio Luna | 336 980 |
| 152/300 |
|  Elect | |||||||
| 1922 | Marcelo T. de Alvear | Elpidio González | 406 304 |
| 235/376 |
| Elect | |||||||
| 1928 | Hippolyte Yrigoyen | Francisco Beiró | 839 140 |
| 245/376 |
| Elect | |||||||
| 1931 | Francisco A. Barroetaveña | José Nicolás Matienzo | 156 904 |
| 117/376 |
| No electorate | |||||||
| 1937 | Marcelo T. de Alvear | Enrique Mosca | 814 750 |
| 127/376 |
| No electorate | Supported by: PDP, PCA, PSO and CO | ||||||
| 1946 | José Tamborini | Enrique Mosca | 1 207 080 |
| 72/376 |
| No electorate | Coalition Democratic Union | ||||||
| 1951 | Ricardo Balbín | Arturo Frondizi | 2 415 750 |
| No electorate | |||||||||
| 1958 | Arturo Frondizi | Alejandro Gómez | 4 070 398 |
| 318/466 |
| Elect | |||||||
| 1963 | Arturo Illia | Carlos Perette | 2 441 064 |
| 270/462 |
| Elect | |||||||
| Mar 1973 | Ricardo Balbín | Eduardo Gamond | 2 537 605 |
| He declined his candidacy | No electorate | He didn't show up on the second round. | |||||||
| Sep 1973 | Ricardo Balbín | Fernando de la Rúa | 2 905 719 |
| No electorate | |||||||||
| 1983 | Raúl Alfonsín | Víctor Martínez | 724 559 |
| 317/600 |
| Elect | |||||||
| 1989 | Eduardo Angeloz | Juan Manuel Casella | 6 213 217 |
| 234/600 |
| No electorate | Alliance with IFC. | ||||||
| 1995 | Horacio Massaccesi | Antonio María Hernández | 2 956 137 |
| No electorate | |||||||||
| 1999 | Fernando de la Rúa | Carlos Álvarez (not radical) | 9 167 220 |
| Elects | Alliance for Labour, Justice and Education | ||||||||
| 2003 | Leopoldo Moreau | Mario Losada | 543 373 |
| No electorate | |||||||||
| 2007 | Roberto Lavagna (not radical) | Gerardo Morales | 3 230 236 |
| No electorate | Concertación para Una Nación Avanzada | ||||||||
| 2011 | Ricardo Alfonsín | Javier González Fraga | 2 443 016 |
| No electorate | Union for Social Development | ||||||||
| 2015 | Mauritius Macri (not radical) | Gabriela Michetti (not radical) | 8 601 063 |
| 12 997 937 |
| Elects | Inside of Change | ||||||
| 2019 | Mauritius Macri (not radical) | Miguel Angel Pichetto (not radical) | 10 811 345 |
| No electorate | Inside Together for Change | ||||||||
Primaries
| Year | Formula | Votes | % | Outcome | Note | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chairman | Vice-Chairman | National level | Partnership | ||||||||
| 2011 | Ricardo Alfonsín | Javier González Fraga | 2 614 211 |
|
| Enabled | Union for Social Development (UDESO) | ||||
| 2015 | Ernesto Sanz | Lucas Llach | 753 825 |
|
| Disabled | Let's change | ||||
Presidential Primaries of the Radical Civic Union
| Binomio | Internal line | Votes | Percentage | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ricardo Balbín-Eduardo Gamond | | Ricardo Balbín-Eduardo Gamond | National Line | 167.143 |
| ||
| Raúl Alfonsín-Conrado Storani |  | Raúl Alfonsín-Conrado Storani | Renewal and Change Movement | 140.840 |
| ||
| Total valid votes | 307.983 |
| |||||
| Total votes cast (participation) | 307.983 |
| |||||
| Abstaining | 258.235 |
| |||||
| Inscribed persons | 566.218 | ||||||
| Binomio | Internal line | Votes | Percentage | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eduardo Angeloz-Juan Manuel Casella |  | Eduardo Angeloz-Juan Manuel Casella | Cordoba Line-Movement of Renovation and Change | 719.115 |
| ||
| Luis León-Carlos Yeregui |  | Luis León-Carlos Yeregui | Yrigoyenist Affirmation Movement | 92.118 |
| ||
| Total valid votes | 811.233 |
| |||||
| Total votes cast (participation) | 811.233 |
| |||||
| Abstaining | 1.962.841 |
| |||||
| Inscribed persons | 2.774.074 | ||||||
| Binomio | Internal line | Votes | Percentage | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Horacio Massaccesi-Antonio María Hernández | Horacio Massaccesi-Antonio María Hernández | Federal Line | 340.118 |
| |||
| Federico Storani-Rodolfo Terragno |  | Federico Storani-Rodolfo Terragno | Current of National Opinion | 207.423 |
| ||
| Total valid votes | 547.541 |
| |||||
| Total votes cast (participation) | 547.541 |
| |||||
| Abstaining | 1.623.233 |
| |||||
| Inscribed persons | 2.170.774 | ||||||
Chamber of Deputies
| Year | Votes | % | Banking | Position | Presidency | Note | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winged | Total | ||||||
| 1912 | 115 087 | 16.81 | 11/120 | Minority | Roque Sáenz Peña (PAN) | ||
| 1914 | 193 895 | 32.29 | 19/60 | 28/120 | Minority | Roque Sáenz Peña (PAN) | |
| 1916 | 336 980 | 46.83 | 26/60 | 46/120 | Minority | Victorino de la Plaza (PAN) | |
| 1918 | 367 263 | 48.07 | 35/60 | 61/120 | Majority | Hippolyte Yrigoyen (UCR) | UCR and UCR Disidente de Santa Fe |
| 1920 | 338 723 | 45.57 | 61/82 | 92/158 | Majority | Hippolyte Yrigoyen (UCR) | |
| 1922 | 419 172 | 47.75 | 53/82 | 98/158 | Majority | Hippolyte Yrigoyen (UCR) | |
| 1924 | 181 179 | 26.48 | 25/82 | 72/158 | Minority | Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear (UCR) | |
| 1926 | 337 898 | 38.19 | 42/82 | 67/158 | Minority | Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear (UCR) | |
| 1928 | 751 909 | 59.36 | 53/82 | 94/158 | Majority | Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear (UCR) | |
| 1930 | 628 378 | 43.48 | 47/82 | 100/158 | Majority | Hippolyte Yrigoyen (UCR) | In coalition with the "Civica Radical Situational Union" in Catamarca. |
| 1934 | 42 123 | 2.99 | 2/79 | 2/158 | Minority | Agustín P. Justo (PDN-Concordance) | He played only in the province of Tucumán, imposing 54.87% of the votes. |
| 1936 | 753 089 | 46.13 | 42/79 | 46/158 | Minority | Agustín P. Justo (PDN-Concordance) | In the province of Tucumán it was divided. |
| 1938 | 521 646 | 29,98 | 31/79 | 72/158 | Minority | Roberto Marcelino Ortiz (UCR-A) | In the provinces of Tucumán, Santiago del Estero and San Juan were divided. |
| 1940 | 895 604 | 49.23 | 49/79 | 80/158 | Majority | Roberto Marcelino Ortiz (UCR-A) | In the province of Tucumán it was divided. |
| 1942 | 491 678 | 25.08 | 25/79 | 69/158 | Minority | Roberto Marcelino Ortiz (UCR-A) | |
| 1946 | 765 186 | 27.37 | 44/158 | Minority | Edelmiro Julián Farrell (de facto) | ||
| 1948 | 607 444 | 24.19 | 23/79 | 45/158 | Minority | Juan Domingo Perón (PJ) | |
| 1951 | 2 415 750 | 32.28 | 14/158 | Minority | Juan Domingo Perón (PJ) | ||
| 1954 | 2 502 109 | 31.64 | 12/173 | Minority | Juan Domingo Perón (PJ) | ||
| 1958 | 6 060 539 | 81.05 | 185/187 | Majority | Pedro Eugenio Aramburu (de facto) | UCR Intransigent and People's RCU | |
| 1960 | 3 873 718 | 43.67 | 93/97 | 187/192 | Majority | Arturo Frondizi (UCRI) | UCR Intransigent and People's RCU |
| 1962 | 3 972 896 | 43.90 | 41/94 | 135/192 | Majority | Arturo Frondizi (UCRI) | UCR Intransigent and People's RCU |
| 1963 | No data | 44.90 | 53/96 | 113/192 | Majority | José María Guido (UCRI) | UCR Intransigent and People's RCU |
| 1965 | 3 141 654 | 32.84 | 35/96 | 88/192 | Minority | Arturo Umberto Illia (UCRP) | UCR Intransigent and People's RCU |
| 1973 | 2 537 605 | 21.29 | 51/243 | Minority | Alejandro Agustín Lanusse (de facto) | ||
| 1983 | 7 104 748 | 47.97 | 65/127 | 129/254 | Majority | Reynaldo Bignone (de facto) | |
| 1985 | 6 678 647 | 43.58 | 65/127 | 130/254 | Majority | Raúl Alfonsín (UCR) | UCR and Popular Movement Catamarqueño |
| 1987 | 5 972 588 | 37.24 | 52/127 | 118/254 | Minority | Raúl Alfonsín (UCR) | UCR and Popular Movement Catamarqueño |
| 1989 | 4 785 185 | 28.75 | 40/127 | 89/254 | Minority | Raúl Alfonsín (UCR) | UCR and Popular Movement Catamarqueño |
| 1991 | 4 538 831 | 29.03 | 43/130 | 84/257 | Minority | Carlos Menem (PJ) | |
| 1993 | 4 946 192 | 30.23 | 41/127 | 84/257 | Minority | Carlos Menem (PJ) | |
| 1995 | 3 679 864 | 21.70 | 28/130 | 68/257 | Minority | Carlos Menem (PJ) | |
| 1997 | 8 103 205 | 46.97 | 63/127 | 111/257 | Minority | Carlos Menem (PJ) | Alliance (UCR and FREPASO) |
| 1999 | 8 091 473 | 43.70 | 66/130 | 129/257 | Majority | Carlos Menem (PJ) | Alliance (UCR and FREPASO) |
| 2001 | 3 340 245 | 23.30 | 25/127 | 80/257 | Minority | Fernando de la Rúa (UCR-Alianza) | Alliance (UCR and FREPASO) |
| 2003 | 2 370 698 | 15.07 | 25/130 | 54/257 | Minority | Eduardo Duhalde (PJ) | |
| 2005 | 2 646 691 | 15.34 | 10/127 | 37/257 | Minority | Néstor Kirchner (PJ-FPV) | UCR and allies (FPCyS, FCyS, Encounter for Change) |
| 2007 | 2 704 102 | 15.34 | 14/130 | 30/257 | Minority | Néstor Kirchner (PJ-FPV) | Concertación para Una Nación Avanzada |
| 2009 | 5 650 224 | 28.80 | 40/127 | 78/257 | Minority | Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (PJ-FPV) | Civic and Social Agreement |
| 2011 | 2 791 911 | 13.55 | 38/130 | 65/257 | Minority | Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (PJ-FPV) | Union for Social Development |
| 2013 | 5 783 025 | 24.84 | 36/127 | 61/257 | Minority | Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (PJ-FPV) | Civic and Social Progressive Front |
| 2015 | 8 230 605 | 32.00 | 16/130 | 38/257 | Minority | Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (PJ-FPV) | UCR in coalition with Change |
| 2017 | 10 161 053 | 41.76 | 26/127 | 44/257 | Minority | Mauritius Macri (PRO-CHANGE) | UCR in coalition with Change |
| 2019 | 10 347 402 | 40.36 | 20/130 | 46/257 | Minority | Mauricio Macri (PRO-Juntos por el Cambio) | RCU in coalition with Together for Change |
| 2021 | 9 832 813 | 42.26 | 24/127 | 45/257 | Minority | Alberto Fernández (PJ-FdT) | RCU in coalition with Together for Change |
Senate
| Year | Banking | Position | Presidency | Note | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winged | Total | ||||
| 1913 | 1/10 | 1/30 | Minority | Roque Sáenz Peña (PAN) | |
| 1916 | 3/10 | 3/30 | Minority | Roque Sáenz Peña (PAN) | |
| 1919 | 7/10 | 10/30 | Minority | Victorino de la Plaza (PAN) | |
| 1922 | 4/10 | 14/30 | Minority | Hippolyte Yrigoyen (UCR) | |
| 1925 | 0/10 | 11/30 | Minority | Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear (UCR) | |
| 1928 | 5/10 | 9/30 | Minority | Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear (UCR) | |
| 1935 | 2/10 | 2/30 | Third force | Agustín P. Justo (PDN-Concordance) | |
| 1938 | 2/10 | 4/30 | Minority | Agustín P. Justo (PDN-Concordance) | |
| 1941 | 2/10 | 6/30 | Majority | Roberto Marcelino Ortiz (UCR-A) | |
| 1946 | 0/30 | Not represented | Edelmiro Julián Farrell (de facto) | ||
| 1949 | 0/30 | Not represented | Juan Domingo Perón (PJ) | ||
| 1958 | 44/46 | Majority | Pedro Eugenio Aramburu (de facto) | UCR Intransigent and People's RCU | |
| 1961 | 42/46 | Majority | Arturo Frondizi (UCRI) | UCR Intransigent and People's RCU | |
| 1963 | 31/46 | Majority | José María Guido (UCRI) | UCR Intransigent and People's RCU | |
| 1966 | 25/46 | Majority | Arturo Umberto Illia (UCRP) | UCR Intransigent and People's RCU | |
| 1973 | 12/69 | Minority | Alejandro Agustín Lanusse (de facto) | ||
| 1983 | 18/46 | Minority | Reynaldo Bignone (de facto) | ||
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