Argentine general election, 1916

2 April 1916



Nominee	Hipólito Yrigoyen	Ángel Rojas
Party	Radical Civic Union	Conservative Party
Home state	Buenos Aires	San Juan
Running mate	Pelagio Luna	Juan Eugenio Serú
Electoral vote	133	76
Popular vote	336.980	155.187
Percentage	46.8%	21.5%

President before election

Victorino de la Plaza
National Autonomist Party

Elected President

Hipólito Yrigoyen
Radical Civic Union

The Argentine general election of 1916 was held on 2 April. Voters elected the President, legislators, and local officials. The first secret-ballot presidential elections in the nation's history, they were mandatory, had a turnout of 62.7% and produced the following official results:

President

Party/Electoral Alliance	Votes	Percentage	Electoral College
Radical Civic Union (UCR)	336,980	46.8%	152
Conservative Party	96,103	13.4%	104
Democratic Progressive Party	63,098	8.8%	20
Socialist Party	52,215	7.3%	14
Autonomist Party of Corrientes	30,968	4.3%
Dissident UCR (Santa Fe Province)	28,116	3.9%
Others	112,089	15.5%	8
Positive votes	719,569	96.5%	298
blank or nullified votes	26,256	3.5%	2 ^a
Total votes	745,825	100.0%	300

^aAbstentions.

^[1]

Argentine Chamber of Deputies

Party/Electoral Alliance	Seats	Change	% of votes
UCR	44	16	46.8%
Conservative	28	3	13.4%
Socialist	9	=	7.3%
Democratic Progressive	8	8	8.8%
Liberal and Autonomist (Corrientes)	6	3	3.0%
Dissident UCR (Santa Fe)	4	4	3.9%
Provincial Union (Salta)	4	2	0.7%
Conservative Coalition (Tucumán Province)	4	=	~
Democratic Union (Santiago del Estero)	3	2	1.9%
Others	7		14.2%
Invalid votes	3^a		3.5%
Total	120		100.0%

^[1]

Notes: a) seats left vacant.

Background

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 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.^[2]

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." ^[3]

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.^[4]

Candidates

Radical Civic Union (populist): President of the UCR Hipólito Yrigoyen of the city of Buenos Aires
National Concentration (conservative): Gobernor Ángel Rojas of San Juan Province
Democratic Progressive Party (reformist): Deputy Lisandro de la Torre of Santa Fe Province
Socialist Party: Deputy Juan B. Justo of the city of Buenos Aires

Yrigoyen
Rojas
de la Torre
Justo

Elections and referendums in Argentina

Presidential elections	1854 1860 1862 1868 1874 1880 1886 1892 1898 1904 1910 1916 1922 1928 1931 1937 1946 1951 1958 1963 1973 (Mar) 1973 (Sep) 1983 1989 1995 1999 2003 2007 2011 2015 2019

Parliamentary elections	1854 1856 1858 1860 1862 1864 1866 1868 1870 1872 1874 1876 1878 1880 1882 1884 1886 1888 1890 1892 1894 1896 1898 1900 1902 1904 1906 1908 1910 1912 1914 1916 1918 1920 1922 1924 1926 1928 1930 1931 1934 1936 1938 1940 1942 1946 1948 (Mar) 1948 (Dec) 1951 1954 1957 1958 1960 1962 1963 1965 1973 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1994 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015 2017 2019

Provincial elections	1854 1856 1858 1860 1862 1864 1866 1868 1870 1872 1874 1876 1878 1880 1882 1884 1886 1888 1890 1892 1894 1896 1898 1900 1902 1904 1906 1908 1910 1912 1914 1916 1918 1920 1922 1924 1926 1928 1930 1931 1934 1936 1937 1938 1940 1942 1946 1948 1951 1954 1957 1958 1960 1962 1963 1965 1973 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2005 2007 2008 2009 2011 2012 2013 2015 2016 2017 2019

Referendums	1984

References

1 2 Nohlen, Dieter. Elections in the Americas. Oxford University Press, 2005.
↑ Todo Argentina: Roque Sáenz Peña (Spanish)
↑ Nouzeilles, Gabriella and Motaldo, Graciela. The Argentina Reader. Duke University Press, 2002.
↑ Todo Argentina: 1916 (Spanish)

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