1931 Argentine general election


The Argentine presidential election of 1931 was held on 8 November. With a turnout of 73.4%, it produced the following official results:
Party/Electoral AllianceVotesPercentageElectoral
College
National Democratic Party
Lista Única
Liberal Party of Corrientes-Antipersonalist UCR alliance		452,560
126,370
28,835		32.2%
9.0%
2.0%		-
Concordance607,76543.2%237
Alianza Civíl
436,12531.0%122
Radical Civic Union 156,90411.2%12
Others203,98114.6%-
Valid votes1,404,77590.4%371
blank or nullified votes149,6629.6%5 a
Total votes1,554,437100.0%376
aAbstentions.

[Argentine Chamber of Deputies]

[Argentine Senate]

Party/Electoral AllianceNew SeatsTotal
National Democratic512
Antipersonalist UCR15
Unified UCR
02
Socialist02
Autonomist Party of Corrientes12
Popular Party of Jujuy12
UCR Bloc
12
Democratic Progressive02
Provincial Defense
11
Total1030

Background

Following months of protest triggered in part by the onset of the great depression, a quiet coup d'état deposed the aging Hipólito Yrigoyen in September 1930. His country's first leader elected via universal suffrage, Yrigoyen had strained alliances within his own centrist Radical Civic Union through frequent interventions against willful governors and had set business powerhouses such as Standard Oil against him through his support of YPF, the state oil concern founded in 1922. Staging its first coup since 1861, the Argentine military, then dominated by conservative, rural interests, called on José Félix Uriburu, a retired general and member of the Supreme War Council, to assume the role of Provisional President. Uriburu, the nephew of former President José Evaristo Uriburu, had no taste for politics and was in ailing health.
He nevertheless set down an ambitious agenda, entrusting his Interior Minister, Matías Sánchez Sorondo, to replace the 1912 Sáenz Peña Law with one promoting a single, ruling party not unlike the one that kept the landowner-oriented National Autonomist Party in power from 1874 to 1916. Aligning themselves behind the relatively moderate National Democratic Party, conservatives were defeated in gubernatorial polls in the paramount Province of Buenos Aires in April 1931. The results not only raised hopes for the centrist, urban-oriented UCR, it also persuaded Uriburu that Sanchez Sorondo's "electoral reform" would not keep conservatives in power, in and of itself.
The UCR turned to Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear for leadership ahead of the November 1931 elections. The scion of one of Argentina's traditional landed families and President from 1922 to 1928, Alvear's alliance with Yrigoyen soured as he challenged the latter's personality cult. The seasoned Alvear, however, took care to assuage the still-popular Yrigoyen's objections by naming former Salta Province Governor Adolfo Güemes as his running mate.
and his benefactor, dictator José Félix Uriburu.
Facing a recovered and nearly-unified UCR, President Uriburu dispensed with his previous pledge to restore constitutional order and annulled the Buenos Aires Province elections. He also promoted the Argentine Civic Legion, an armed fascist organization entrusted to intimidate the opposition. Alvear's establishment of a Renewal Junta helped lead to a violent July 20 clash with Uriburu's forces in Corrientes Province, which gave the President the pretext for ordering Alvear's deportation, a few days later. Deprived of their candidate, the UCR boycotted the 1931 election, though party committees in a number of provinces participated in the November polls.
The support of UCR Senator Leopoldo Melo and Uriburu for retired General Agustín Justo as candidate resulted in the Concordance. This new, conservative alliance heeded Uriburu's sage advice during their nominating convention, sidestepping imposing landowners in favor of Justo, who had been President Alvear's War Minister in the 1920s, They picked former Córdoba Governor Julio Roca as his running mate; Roca, the son of the late PAN leader, Julio A. Roca, had led the Democratic Party of Córdoba.
The Democratic Progressive Party, known for its anti-corruption platform, nominated Senator Lisandro de la Torre, who also earned the endorsement of the Socialist Party of Argentina, a party in search of leadership following the passing of Juan B. Justo, in 1928. The alliance alienated conservatives in the PDP, however, who instead endorsed the aging Francisco A. Barroetaveña, a former Senator who ran on a UCR ticket limited to his Entre Ríos Province. Barroetaveña, who helped found the UCR in 1890, broke with Yrigoyen during the 1920s and hoped to rally the exiled Alvear's supporters behind him.
Ultimately, voter intimidation and widespread irregularities helped give the National Democratic-led Concordance a sizable victory on election night. The electoral college, however, which counted the conservatives' ad hoc Lista Única separately, was far more closely divided: 135 for Justo, 124 for de la Torre, and 117 for the numerous UCR tickets who defied Alvear's boycott. As most of these splinter UCR tickets were led by conservative figures opposed to the muck-raking Senator de la Torre, their pledge of most of their 117 electors handed Justo the Presidency.

Candidates