1924 Argentine legislative election

1924 Argentine legislative election

←  1922 2 March 1924 1926  →
81 of the 158 seats in the Chamber of Deputies
Turnout	47.24%
Party Vote % Seats +/– Radical Civic Union 27.21 26 −25 Conservative Parties 21.97 22 +13 Socialist Party 15.29 16 +9 Unified Radical Civic Union  [ es ] 11.28 9 +7 Antipersonalist Radical Civic Union  [ es ] 6.97 3 New Democratic Progressive Party 5.71 3 −7 Lencinist Radical Civic Union  [ es ] 2.33 2 New This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below. Results by province

Voters vote in the 1924 elections. A lack of defining isuues, and the prevailing acrimony between pro and anti-Yrigoyen UCR factions drove turnout to the lowest in post-reform Argentine electoral history

President Alvear kicks off the inaugural match at Boca Juniors stadium. 1924 effectively made him the referee in disputes among the numerous UCR factions.

Legislative elections were held in Argentina on 2 March 1924. Voters chose their legislators and numerous governors, and with a turnout of 44%.

Background

President Hipólito Yrigoyen finished his term of office in 1922 with a prosperous economy, soaring popularity and content with leaving the Casa Rosada with his Ambassador to France, Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear. The scion of one of Argentina's traditional landed families, the well-mannered Alvear placated Yrigoyen's fears of losing control over the Radical Civic Union, a risk he insured himself against by placing his personal friend and former Buenos Aires Police Chief, Elpidio González, as Alvear's vice-president. ^[1]

Alvear continued his predecessor's social and economic policies, including much-needed labor and pension laws, anti-trust legislation, and supporting Yrigoyen's landmark state oil concern, YPF; but his wholesale replacement of Yrigoyen appointees threw the populist leader and Vice President González against Alvear, in whose defense nine Argentine Senators left the UCR. Citing Yrigoyen's 18 gubernatorial removals (including numerous ones from his own party, and in all but one of Argentina's 14 provinces at the time), they contended that the former president had imposed a "personality cult", and established the Antipersonalist UCR (UCRA). The schism became official in 1924, when the two factions presented different candidates for that year's congressional elections. ^[2]

The Antipersonalists were themselves beset by disunity, however. Five "dissident" UCR groups presented candidates in 1924, and, representing provincial interests as they did, no one faction could claim the "antipersonalist" mantle. These differed not only in their geography; but also in their ideology. The most well-established group, led by Senator Leopoldo Melo and endorsed by President Alvear, were closely associated with the landowning elite, particularly that of Buenos Aires Province, incorporated much of the declining Conservative Party, and were the least amenable to reform. The leader of the Unified UCR, Santa Fe Governor Enrique Mosca, was, likewise, conservative, whereas the Mendoza faction, led by Governor Carlos Washington Lencinas (the Lencinist UCR), was more liberal than Yrigoyen's own. ^[3]

Ultimately, an acrimonious campaign atmosphere, as well as a shortage of prescient issues amid continuing prosperity, helped result in the lowest turnout since the advent of universal (male) suffrage. ^[4] Yrigoyen's UCR bore the brunt of the resulting losses, giving up 19 seats in the Lower House, and, in contests held in April, 1925, 6 of their 15 seats in the Senate (though this latter was partly the result of UCRA defections). The party won only in Buenos Aires Province, where the opposition remained dominated by the Conservatives. The UCR's losses were most notable in the City of Buenos Aires, where the Socialist Party regained majorities in both the congressional delegation and City Council they had lost to the UCR in 1918. Provincial parties (as well as province-specific UCR groups) did well, and deprived the UCRA of fully benefiting from the shift. ^{[2] [5]}

The elections handed no one faction of the fragmented UCR a victory; nor did it give their competitors in the reformist field (Socialists and Democratic Progressives) reason to believe they could supplant Yrigoyen in the foreseeable future. The real winner, however, was arguably President Alvear himself, who, by both default and reputation, would now be the final arbiter over the many, ongoing disputes between Antipersonalists, who nursed old wounds dating from Yrigoyen's "interventions," and Yrigoyen's faction of the UCR, who staked their future on the populist leader's return to the Presidency in 1928. ^{[3] [4]}

Results

Party or alliance				Votes	%	Seats
						Won	Total
	Radical Civic Union			181,179	27.21	26	70
	Conservative Parties		Conservative Party	35,901	5.39	8	–
			Democratic Party of Córdoba  [ es ]	27,634	4.15	6	–
			Autonomist–Liberal Pact  [ es ]	25,692	3.86	2	–
			Popular Concentration	20,084	3.02	1	–
			Liberal Party of Tucumán	15,058	2.26	2	–
			Liberal Party of Mendoza	9,009	1.35	1	–
			Liberal Democratic Party  [ es ]	7,175	1.08	2	–
			Popular Party	5,773	0.87	0	–
		Total		146,326	21.97	22	40
	Socialist Party			101,785	15.29	16	19
	Unified Radical Civic Union  [ es ]			75,105	11.28	9	9
	Antipersonalist Radical Civic Union  [ es ]			46,435	6.97	3	3
	Dissident Radicalism		Opposition Radical Civic Union	14,661	2.20	0	—
			Principist Radical Civic Union  [ es ]	6,621	0.99	0	—
			Bascarista Radical Civic Union	4,524	0.68	0	—
			Red Radical Civic Union	2,849	0.43	0	—
			Blue Radical Civic Union	2,841	0.43	0	—
			Verista Radical Civic Union	2,429	0.36	0	—
			Personalist Radical Civic Union	2,273	0.34	0	—
			Dissident Radical Civic Union (Castro Committee)	2,225	0.33	0	—
			Yrigoyenist Radical Civic Union	1,456	0.22	0	—
		Total		39,879	5.99	0	5
	Democratic Progressive Party			37,996	5.71	3	6
	Lencinist Radical Civic Union  [ es ]			15,485	2.33	2	4
	Communist Party of Argentina			4,498	0.68	0	0
	Public Health Party  [ es ]			1,431	0.21	0	0
	National Feminist Party  [ es ]			1,313	0.20	0	0
	Georgist Liberal Party			1,226	0.18	0	0
	Unitarian Party			903	0.14	0	0
	Railway Workers			766	0.12	0	0
	Independent Workers Party			740	0.11	0	0
	Others			9,869	1.48	0	0
	Independents			949	0.14	0	0
	Blockist Radical Civic Union  [ es ]					–	2
Total				665,885	100.00	81	158
Valid votes				665,885	93.93
Invalid votes				144	0.02
Blank votes				42,899	6.05
Total votes				708,928	100.00
Registered voters/turnout				1,502,566	47.18
Source: Ministry of the Interior [6] Cantón, [7] Chamber of Deputies [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15]

References

1. Todo Argentina: 1922 Archived 2018-10-02 at the Wayback Machine (in Spanish)
2. Todo Argentina: 1924 Archived 2018-10-02 at the Wayback Machine (in Spanish)
3. Unión Cívica Radical (Capital Federal) Evolución del radicalismo Parte I (1893-1928) Archived 2007-03-11 at the Wayback Machine (in Spanish)
4. Rock, David. Argentina: 1516-1982. University of California Press, 1987.
5. Nómina de diputados de la nacion por distrito electoral: periodo 1854-1991. Buenos Aires: Cámara de Diputados de la Nación, 1991.
6. Memoria del Ministerio del Interior presentada al Honorable Congreso de la Nación 1923-1924. Buenos Aires: Establecimiento Gráfico Gerónimo Pesce. 1924. pp. 287–292, 295–306.
7. 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. pp. 93–94.
8. Expediente 48-D-1924 (PDF). Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina. 1924.
9. 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. 398–402.
10. Expediente 8-D-1924 (PDF). Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina. 1924.
11. Expediente 39-D-1924 (PDF). Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina. 1924.
12. Expediente 6-D-1924 (PDF). Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina. 1924.
13. Expediente 3-D-1924 (PDF). Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina. 1924.
14. Expediente 17-D-1924 (PDF). Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina. 1924.
15. Memoria del Ministerio del Interior presentada al Honorable Congreso de la Nación 1924-1925. Buenos Aires: Talleres Gráficos Argentinos de L. J. Rosso y Cía. 1925. p. 364.