1916 Argentine general election

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1916 Argentine general election
Flag of Argentina.svg
2 April 1916
Presidential election
  1910
1922  

300 members of the Electoral College
151 votes needed to win
  Hipolito Yrigoyen con banda (02).jpg Angel Dolores Rojas.jpg Lisandro de la Torre 001.jpg
Nominee Hipólito Yrigoyen Ángel Rojas Lisandro de la Torre
Party UCR Conservative PDP
Electoral vote15210420
Popular vote340,802150,245135,308
Percentage47.25%20.83%18.76

Elecciones presidenciales de Argentina de 1916.png
Result by province

President before election

Victorino de la Plaza
PAN

Elected President

Hipólito Yrigoyen
UCR

Chamber of Deputies
  1914 2 April 1916 1918  

62 of the 120 seats in the Chamber of Deputies
Turnout65.59%
PartyVote %Seats+/–
Radical Civic Union 44.7626+6
Conservative Concentration 24.7818−9
Democratic Progressive Party 9.777+5
Socialist Party 7.233−4
Dissident Radical Civic Union  [ es ]3.854+4
Liberal–Autonomist Pact  [ es ]2.363−2
This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below.
Elecciones legislativas de Argentina de 1916 - Resultados por distrito.svg
Results by province

General elections were held in Argentina on 2 April 1916. Voters elected the President, legislators, and local officials. The first secret-ballot presidential elections in the nation's history, they were mandatory and had a turnout of 63%. The turnout for the Chamber of Deputies election was 65%.

Contents

Background

UCR leader Hipolito Yrigoyen greets supporters following his 1916 victory. His advocacy for free elections for over a generation resulted in Argentina's first pluralist government. Yrigoyen.jpg
UCR leader Hipólito Yrigoyen greets supporters following his 1916 victory. His advocacy for free elections for over a generation resulted in Argentina's first pluralist government.

President Roque Sáenz Peña kept his word to the exiled leader of the Radical Civic Union (UCR), Hipólito Yrigoyen, who in turn abandoned his party's twenty-year-old boycott of elections. The president overcame nearly two years of conservative opposition in Congress (and pressure from his own social class) to pass in 1912 what was later known as the Sáenz Peña Law, which mandated universal male suffrage and the secret ballot. His health deteriorating quickly, the President lived to see the fruition of his reforms: the 1914 mid-term elections, which gave the UCR 19 out of the 60 Lower House seats in play (the ruling party obtained 10) and the governorship of Santa Fe Province (then the second-most important). Another beneficiary of the Sáenz Peña Law was the Socialist Party, led by Congressman Juan B. Justo. The formerly dominant PAN remained divided between the Conservative Party, led by the Governor of Buenos Aires Province, Marcelino Ugarte, and the Democratic Progressive Party, led by a reformist publisher and Congressman, Lisandro de la Torre. [1]

Strengthened by both popular appeal and the fractiousness of its opposition, the UCR experienced dissent within from its Santa Fe Province chapter, whose endorsement Yrigoyen was unable to obtain. The Socialists lost one of its best-known lawmakers, Alfredo Palacios, who would run on a splinter Socialist ticket for several future elections. The Conservative Party's presumptive nominee, Governor Ugarte, stepped aside in favor of a lesser-known party figure, San Juan Province Governor Ángel Rojas, in a bid to attract votes from the hinterland and from moderates. President Victorino de la Plaza refused to interfere on behalf of the Conservatives (despite an assassination attempt that would have provided him with ample pretext). Refusing to back them, he fielded his own Provincial Party, which was limited mainly to his native Santiago del Estero Province. Faced with only token opposition from the remnants of the once-paramount PAN, Yrigoyen pledged to donate his salary to charity, if elected, and encouraged the rich country's impoverished majority to know him as "the father of the poor". [2]

Election day, April 2, handed an unexpectedly large victory to Yrigoyen, who still had to await the results from the electoral college (which met in July). The dissident Santa Fe UCR had drained a significant number of electors from the official ticket, and Yrigoyen obtained but 133 of the body's 300 electors. Numerous Democratic Progressives, moreover, became faithless electors - pledging their support to the Conservative Party. Santa Fe's UCR, however, resorted to the same tactic, allowing Yrigoyen its 19 electors and making the patient activist for voter rights the first democratically elected President of Argentina. [3]

Candidates

Results

Electoral college

CandidateRunning mateParty or allianceVotes%Seats
Hipólito Yrigoyen Pelagio Luna Radical Civic Union 340,80247.25133
Ángel Dolores Rojas Juan Eugenio Serú  [ es ] Conservative
Concentration
Conservative Party 96,10313.3346
Popular Party16,1412.247
Democratic Union13,9211.934
Autonomist Party of Corrientes 9,6451.340
Civic Concentration9,1701.277
Provincial Party  [ es ]5,2650.736
Total150,24520.8370
Lisandro de la Torre Alejandro Carbó  [ es ]De la Torre–Carbó Democratic Progressive Party 115,60416.0349
Provincial Union 10,9091.518
Catamarca Concentration 8,7951.227
Total135,30818.7664
Juan B. Justo Nicolás Repetto Socialist Party 66,3979.2114
No candidateNo candidate Dissident Radical Civic Union  [ es ]28,1163.9019
No candidateNo candidateArgentine Socialist Party3470.050
Total721,215100.00300
Valid votes721,21596.49
Invalid/blank votes26,2563.51
Total votes747,471100.00
Registered voters/turnout1,189,25462.85
Source: [4] [5] [6] [7]

President

CandidatePartyVotes%
Hipólito Yrigoyen Radical Civic Union 15251.01
Ángel Dolores Rojas Conservative Party 10434.90
Lisandro de la Torre Democratic Progressive Party 206.71
Juan B. Justo Socialist Party 144.70
Alejandro Carbó  [ es ] Democratic Progressive Party 82.68
Total298100.00
Registered voters/turnout300

By province

ProvinceYrigoyenRojasde la TorreJustoCarbó
Buenos Aires City 3014
Buenos Aires 2040
Catamarca 37
Córdoba 187
Corrientes 612
Entre Ríos 157
Jujuy 26
La Rioja 26
Mendoza 84
Salta 48
San Juan 37
San Luis 37
Santa Fe 198
Santiago del Estero 104
Tucumán 126
Total15210420148
Source: Senate, [8] Duhalde [9]

Vice president

CandidatePartyVotes%
Pelagio Luna Radical Civic Union 15251.01
Juan Eugenio Serú  [ es ] Conservative Party 10334.56
Alejandro Carbó  [ es ] Democratic Progressive Party 206.71
Nicolás Repetto Socialist Party 144.70
Carlos Ibarguren Democratic Progressive Party 82.68
Julio Argentino Pascual Roca Conservative Party 10.34
Total298100.00
Registered voters/turnout300

By province

ProvinceLunaSerúCarbóRepettoIbargurenRoca
Buenos Aires City 3014
Buenos Aires 2040
Catamarca 37
Córdoba 187
Corrientes 612
Entre Ríos 157
Jujuy 26
La Rioja 26
Mendoza 831
Salta 48
San Juan 37
San Luis 37
Santa Fe 198
Santiago del Estero 104
Tucumán 126
Total152103201481
Source: Senate [8] Duhalde [9]

Chamber of Deputies

Party or allianceVotes%Seats
WonTotal
Radical Civic Union 339,29644.762647
Conservative Parties Conservative Party113,00214.9115
Popular Concentration21,7502.870
People's Party16,6642.200
Democratic Union15,1462.001
Provincial Union11,3391.502
Autonomist Party of Corrientes 9,9111.310
Total187,81224.781843
Democratic Progressive Party 74,0619.7779
Socialist Party 54,8387.2339
Argentine Socialist Party 34,0524.4900
Dissident Radical Civic Union  [ es ]29,1733.8544
Liberal–Autonomist Pact  [ es ]17,9102.3636
Unitarian Party7590.1000
Others20,1632.6601
Vacant11
Total758,064100.0062120
Valid votes758,06498.19
Invalid/blank votes13,9641.81
Total votes772,028100.00
Registered voters/turnout1,189,25464.92
Source: [4] [6] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25]

References

  1. Todo Argentina: Roque Sáenz Peña (in Spanish)
  2. Nouzeilles, Gabriella and Motaldo, Graciela. The Argentina Reader. Duke University Press, 2002.
  3. Todo Argentina: 1916 Archived 2018-07-17 at the Wayback Machine (in Spanish)
  4. 1 2 Cantón, Darío (1968). Materiales para el estudio de la sociología política en la Argentina (PDF). Vol. Tomo I. Buenos Aires: Centro de Investigaciones Sociales - Torcuato di Tella Institute. p. 85.
  5. Historia Electoral Argentina (1912-2007) (PDF). Ministry of Interior - Subsecretaría de Asuntos Políticos y Electorales. December 2008. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 September 2014.
  6. 1 2 Las Fuerzas Armadas restituyen el imperio de la soberanía popular: Las elecciones generales de 1946 (PDF). Vol. Tomo I. Buenos Aires: Imprenta de la Cámara de Diputados. 1946. pp. 368–375.
  7. Ansaldi, Waldo (Feb 1989). "Estado, partidos y sociedad en la Argentina Radical, 1916-1930" (PDF). Revista Uruguaya de Ciencias Sociales. No. 2. Centro Latinoamericano de Economía Humana.
  8. 1 2 Diario de sesiones de la Cámara de Senadores - Año 1916 - Tomo I. Buenos Aires: Talleres Gráficos de L. J. Rosso y Cía. 1916. pp. 88–110.
  9. 1 2 Duhalde, Eduardo Luis (2007). Acción Parlamentaria de John William Cooke. Buenos Aires: Colihue. p. 232. ISBN   978-950-563-460-6.
  10. Expediente 19-D-1916 (PDF). Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina. 1916.
  11. Expediente 4-D-1916 (PDF). Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina. 1916.
  12. Expediente 11-D-1916 (PDF). Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina. 1916.
  13. Expediente 36-D-1916 (PDF). Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina. 1916.
  14. Cabezas, Horacio (1991). Villa María y su radicalismo. Universidad de Michigan. p. 31.
  15. Diario de sesiones de la Cámara de Diputados - Año 1916. Vol. Tomo I. Buenos Aires: Talleres Gráficos de L. J. Rosso y Cía. 1916. p. 73.
  16. Expediente 55-D-1916 (PDF). Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina. 1916.
  17. Expediente 49-D-1916 (PDF). Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina. 1916.
  18. Expediente 9-D-1916 (PDF). Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina. 1916. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 May 2022.
  19. Expediente 31-P-1916 (PDF). Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina. 1916.
  20. Expediente 58-D-1916 (PDF). Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina. 1916.
  21. Expediente 53-D-1916 (PDF). Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina. 1916.
  22. Expediente 27-D-1916 (PDF). Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina. 1916.
  23. Expediente 43-D-1916 (PDF). Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina. 1916.
  24. Diario de sesiones de la Cámara de Diputados - Año 1916. Vol. Tomo I. Buenos Aires: Talleres Gráficos de L. J. Rosso y Cía. 1916. p. 170.
  25. Expediente 7-D-1916 (PDF). Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina. 1916.