1918 Argentine legislative election

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1918 Argentine legislative election
Flag of Argentina.svg
  1916 3 March 1918 1920  

64 of the 120 seats in the Chamber of Deputies
Turnout58.48%
PartyVote %Seats+/–
Radical Civic Union 46.9236+10
Conservative Parties 22.5018−3
Socialist Party 8.7430
Dissident Radical Civic Union  [ es ]8.4340
Democratic Progressive Party 7.761−6
This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below.
Elecciones legislativas de Argentina de 1918 - Resultados por distrito.svg
Results by province

Legislative elections were held in Argentina on 3 March 1918. Voters chose their legislators and numerous governors, and with a turnout of 58%.

Contents

Background

President Hipólito Yrigoyen, elected in 1916 in the nation's first, free elections, responded (like numerous other administrations before his) to opposition with less than democratic means: the placing of provincial governments under federal intervention. His first target, Marcelino Ugarte, was the Conservative Governor of Buenos Aires Province (home to over one in three Argentines, and to most of the source of the nation's growing wealth, the Pampas); Ugarte's removal on April 24, 1917, would be followed by six others by the time the first Yrigoyen-era mid-term elections arrived a year later. [1]

The President's lack of support in Congress for these moves (which, on the Ugarte issue, lost a floor vote by 36 to 53), extended to other areas, including foreign policy. Congress rejected Yrigoyen's policy of neutrality, and approved a series of measures in support of the Allied Powers; indeed, the only significant presidential bill supported by Congress during the 1916–18 term was a modest, 5 percent export tariff enacted to finance needed rural public works. Rifts developed within the UCR, itself - notably in the important Santa Fe Province, where Governor Rodolfo Lehmann formed the Dissident UCR in protest over the President's policy over removing governors. [2]

Focused on the crucial Buenos Aires Province gubernatorial race, the UCR nominated one of their most prominent supporters from among the landed gentry, José Camilo Crotto. Crotto, a UCR activist from its earliest days in the 1890s, was a reformist who shared Yrigoyen's support for public works, farm credit, and de-monopolization of the province's vast rail network. [1] The economy, burdened by a shortage of capital and imported goods as a result of World War I, had begun to recover strongly by late 1917. This improvement took place despite an extensive strike in the critical rail transport sector, and turned the electoral tide in Yrigoyen's favor ahead of the March 1918 polls. [3]

Ultimately, the UCR repeated its performance in the 1916 legislative races, winning nearly half the vote, and gaining 12 seats. The results left them 5 short of an absolute majority; [4] but made temporary alliances feasible, and thus guaranteed the President's legislative agenda. Buenos Aires Province, the bulwark of conservative opposition, would have its first elected UCR governor with Crotto's defeat of Conservative candidate Alfredo Echagüe by 114,000 to 68,000, as well as an ample majority in the provincial legislature. [1] The UCR won in nearly every province in which elections were held in 1918, as well as in the City of Buenos Aires, where the formerly dominant Socialists (saddled by a break in party ranks) secured but 3 of the 9 seats at stake. Yrigoyen's most glaring defeat, in turn, came from Santa Fe, where Governor Lehmann's Dissident UCR won 4 of the 6 seats at stake.

Elections to the Senate, held in April, 1919, significantly enhanced the UCR's presence in the body, where opposition to Yrigoyen's populist agenda had been strongest. The party won 7 of the 10 seats at stake, including the crucial City of Buenos Aires seat (the only one not elected by provincial legislatures, until 2001), where Congressman Vicente Gallo, a veteran of the UCR's struggle for universal (male) suffrage from the 1890s, defeated the Socialists; Gallo, a founding member of the right-wing Argentine Patriotic League, benefited from a Red Scare that developed in the city during January's "Tragic Week" riots. [5] Five of these new Senators, however, including three from the UCR itself, and both San Luis Province Senators, were barred from taking their seats by President Yrigoyen's intervention decrees. They joined the numerous Governors so removed, and portended a deep schism in the party. [5]

Results

Camara de Diputados de la Argentina en 1918.svg
Party or allianceVotes%Seats
WonTotal
Radical Civic Union 349,62246.923659
Conservative Parties Conservative Party 68,1959.155
Popular Concentration35,8794.827
Liberal Party of Corrientes 14,7691.983
Liberal Party of Tucumán14,0541.891
Democratic Union9,2201.240
Autonomist Party of Corrientes 8,8211.180
Provincial Union8,6461.162
Catamarca Concentration8,0891.090
Total167,67322.501837
Socialist Party 65,0998.7436
Dissident Radical Civic Union  [ es ]62,7918.4348
Democratic Progressive Party 57,8267.7618
Argentine Socialist Party35,3094.7400
International Socialist Party 2,7530.3700
Unitarian Party1,2420.1700
For the National Intervention6900.0900
Independent Youth4160.0600
Others1,6520.2200
Vacant22
Total745,073100.0064120
Valid votes745,07397.74
Invalid/blank votes17,2262.26
Total votes762,299100.00
Registered voters/turnout1,303,44658.48
Source: Cantón, [6] Chamber of Deputies [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Walter, Richard. The Province of Buenos Aires and Argentine Politics, 1912-1943. Cambridge University Press, 1985.
  2. Todo Argentina: 1918 Archived 2018-08-14 at the Wayback Machine (in Spanish)
  3. Todo Argentina: 1917 Archived 2018-10-01 at the Wayback Machine (in Spanish)
  4. Nohlen, Dieter. Elections in the Americas : a data handbook. Oxford University Press, 2005.
  5. 1 2 Rock, David. Argentina: 1516-1982. University of California Press, 1987.
  6. Cantón, Darío (1968). Materiales para el estudio de la sociología política en la Argentina (PDF). Vol. Tomo I. Buenos Aires: Centro de Investigaciones Sociales - Instituto Torcuato Di Tella. p. 87.
  7. 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. 376–381.
  8. Expediente 42-D-1918 (PDF). Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina. 1918.
  9. Expediente 7-D-1918 (PDF). Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina. 1918.
  10. Expediente 10-D-1918 (PDF). Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina. 1918.
  11. Diario de sesiones de la Cámara de Diputados - Año 1918. Vol. Tomo I. Buenos Aires: Talleres Gráficos Argentinos de L. J. Rosso y Cía. 1918. p. 17.
  12. Expediente 35-D-1918 (PDF). Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina. 1918.
  13. Expediente 59-D-1918 (PDF). Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina. 1918.
  14. Expediente 45-D-1918 (PDF). Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina. 1918.
  15. Expediente 23-D-1918 (PDF). Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina. 1918.
  16. Expediente 57-D-1918 (PDF). Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina. 1918.
  17. Expediente 24-D-1918 (PDF). Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina. 1918.
  18. Expediente 50-D-1918 (PDF). Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina. 1918.
  19. Diario de sesiones de la Cámara de Diputados - Año 1918. Vol. Tomo II. Buenos Aires: Talleres Gráficos Argentinos de L. J. Rosso y Cía. 1918. p. 589.