1944 Guatemalan parliamentary by-election

Last updated

By-elections to fill vacancies in the Congress were held in Guatemala on 13 October 1944. Congressional elections were blatantly manipulated to insure the election of government candidates. [1] Following the example of former president Ubico, president Ponce Vaides rigged the congressional elections in October 1944, in which the official slate won 48,530 votes out of a total of 44,571 ballots. [2] The ruling Progressive Liberal Party's candidates easily captured the five congressional seats available. [3]

On 20 October 1944, young military officers deposed President Ponce in a lightning-quick coup. [4] The junta immediately dissolved the legislature and set dates for three elections: congressional, 3-5 November; presidential, 17-19 December; and, constituent assembly, 28-30 December. [5]

Related Research Articles

Jacobo Árbenz President of Guatemala from 1951–54

Juan Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán was a Guatemalan military officer and politician who served as the 25th President of Guatemala. He was Minister of National Defense from 1944 to 1951, and the second democratically elected President of Guatemala, from 1951 to 1954. He was a major figure in the ten-year Guatemalan Revolution, which represented some of the few years of representative democracy in Guatemalan history. The landmark program of agrarian reform Árbenz enacted as president was very influential across Latin America.

Jorge Ubico Guatemalan dictator

Jorge Ubico Castañeda, nicknamed Number Five or also Central America's Napoleon, was a Guatemalan dictator. A general in the Guatemalan army, he was elected to the presidency in 1931, in an election where he was the only candidate. He continued his predecessors' policies of giving massive concessions to the United Fruit Company and wealthy landowners, as well as supporting their harsh labor practices. Ubico has been described as "one of the most oppressive tyrants Guatemala has ever known" who compared himself to Adolf Hitler. He was removed by a pro-democracy uprising in 1944, which led to the ten-year Guatemalan Revolution.

Carlos Castillo Armas 28th president of Guatemala (1954–57)

Carlos Castillo Armas was a Guatemalan military officer and politician who was the 28th president of Guatemala, serving from 1954 to 1957 after taking power in a coup d'état. A member of the right-wing National Liberation Movement (MLN) party, his authoritarian government was closely allied with the United States.

Lurleen Wallace American politician

Lurleen Burns Wallace was the 46th governor of Alabama for fifteen months from January 1967 until her death in May 1968. She was the first wife of Alabama governor George Wallace, whom she succeeded as governor because the Alabama constitution forbade consecutive terms. She was Alabama's first female governor and was the only female governor to hold the position until Kay Ivey became the second woman to succeed to the office in 2017. She is also the only female governor in U.S. history to have died in office. In 1973, she was posthumously inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame.

Francisco Javier Arana Guatemalan politician

Francisco Javier Arana Castro was a Guatemalan military leader and one of the three members of the revolutionary junta that ruled Guatemala from 20 October 1944 to 15 March 1945 during the early part of the Guatemalan Revolution. A major in the Guatemalan army under the dictator Jorge Ubico, he allied with a progressive faction of the army to topple Ubico's successor Federico Ponce Vaides. He led the three-man junta that oversaw the transition to a democratic government, although he was personally reluctant to allow the elected President Juan José Arévalo to take office in 1945. He served as the Chief of the Armed Forces in the new government until 1949. On 18 July 1949 he was killed in a shootout with supporters of the Arévalo government after he threatened to launch a coup.

Juan Federico Ponce Vaides

Juan Federico Ponce Vaides was the acting President of Guatemala from 4 July 1944 to 20 October 1944. He was overthrown by a popular uprising on the 20th of October 1944 that began the Guatemalan Revolution.

Solid South Electoral support of the Southern United States for Democratic Party candidates from 1877 to 1964

The Solid South or Southern bloc was the electoral voting bloc of the states of the Southern United States for issues that were regarded as particularly important to the interests of Democrats in those states. The Southern bloc existed especially between the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964. During this period, the Democratic Party controlled state legislatures; most local and state officeholders in the South were Democrats, as were federal politicians elected from these states. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, Southern Democrats disenfranchised blacks in all Southern states, along with a few non-Southern states doing the same as well. This resulted essentially in a one-party system, in which a candidate's victory in Democratic primary elections was tantamount to election to the office itself. White primaries were another means that the Democrats used to consolidate their political power, excluding blacks from voting in primaries.

Melvin T. Mason

Melvin T. Mason, is an American politician who ran as Socialist Workers Party candidate for President of the United States in the 1984 United States presidential election.

Burwell Boykin Lewis represented both Alabama's 6th congressional district and Alabama's At-large congressional district in the United States House of Representatives.

Edward deGraffenried

Edward deGraffenried was a U.S. Representative from Alabama.

1944 Guatemalan Constitutional Assembly election

Constitutional Assembly elections were held on 28–30 December 1944. The United Front of Arevalist Parties won 50 of the 65 seats.

July 1944 Guatemalan presidential election

A presidential election was held in Guatemala on 4 July 1944.

Jorge Ubico y Castañeda’s presidential term was extended to 15 March 1949 by a Constituent Assembly on 11 September 1941. Assumed office 15 March 1943.

1947 Nicaraguan general election

General elections were held in Nicaragua on 2 February 1947 to elect a president and National Congress.

1947 Nicaraguan Constitutional Assembly election

Constitutional Assembly elections were held in Nicaragua on 3 August 1947.

1947 Nicaraguan presidential election

Presidential elections were held in Nicaragua on 15 August 1947.

1936 Nicaraguan general election

General elections were held in Nicaragua on 8 December 1936 to elect a President, half of the Deputies and one-third of the Senators of the National Congress.

1938 Nicaraguan Constitutional Assembly election

Constitutional Assembly elections were held in Nicaragua on 6 November 1938.

The elections held on 6 November 1938 were even more of a sham than those that named Anastasio Somoza García president in 1936. The Conservatives decided to abstain again, while the ballot boxes and ballots were distributed throughout the country by the quartermaster general of the Guardia Nacional. The final results were made available within twenty-four hours. In 1938 the Genuino Conservatives decided to field candidates for the Constituent Assembly although the Conservative party’s leadership vehemently opposed the plan.

Guatemalan Revolution Popular uprising that overthrew dictator Jorge Ubico in 1944

The Guatemalan Revolution was the period in Guatemalan history between the popular uprising that overthrew dictator Jorge Ubico in 1944 and the United States-orchestrated coup d'état in 1954 that overthrew the democratically elected President Jacobo Árbenz. This period has also been called the Ten Years of Spring, highlighting the only years of representative democracy in Guatemala from 1930 until the end of the civil war in 1996, which saw the implementation of a program of social, political, and especially agrarian reform that was enormously influential across Latin America.

1978 United States Senate election in Alabama

The 1978 United States Senate election in Alabama was held on November 7, 1978. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator John Sparkman decided to retire and Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Howell Heflin was elected to succeed him.

References

  1. Berger, Susan Ann. State and agrarian development: Guatemala (1931-1978). New York: Columbia University. Unpublished dissertation. 1986. Pp. 134.
  2. Yashar, Deborah J. Demanding democracy: reform and reaction in Costa Rica and Guatemala, 1870s-1950s. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1997. Pp. 96.
  3. Leonard, Thomas M. The United States and Central America, 1944-1949: perceptions of political dynamics. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press. 1984. Pp. 82.
  4. Dosal, Paul J. Doing business with the dictators: a political history of United Fruit in Guatemala, 1899-1944. Wilmington: Scholarly Resources. 1993. Pp. 226.
  5. Leonard, Thomas M. The United States and Central America, 1944-1949: perceptions of political dynamics. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press. 1984. Pp. 84.