1916 Argentine general election

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 and had a turnout of 62.7%.

1916 Argentine general election

2 April 1916
300 members of the Electoral College 151 votes needed to win
Nominee Hipólito Yrigoyen Ángel Rojas Lisandro de la Torre Party Radical Civic Union Conservative Party Democratic Progressive Party Home state Buenos Aires City San Juan Santa Fe Running mate Pelagio Luna Juan Eugenio Serú Alejandro Carbó Electoral vote 152 104 20 States carried 6 + CF 6 2 Popular vote 336.980 155.187 63,098 Percentage 46.83% 21.57% 8.77
Most voted party by province.
President before election Victorino de la Plaza National Autonomist Party Elected President Hipólito Yrigoyen Radical Civic Union

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's 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.[1]

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." [2]

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.[3]

Candidates

• Radical Civic Union (populist): President of the UCR Hipólito Yrigoyen of the city of Buenos Aires
• Conservative Party (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

President

Popular Vote

President	Vice President	Party/Alliance		Popular vote		Electoral vote
				Votes	%	Votes	%
Hipólito Yrigoyen	Pelagio Luna		Radical Civic Union	340,802	47.25%	141	47.00%
Ángel Dolores Rojas	Juan Eugenio Serú		Conservative Party	186,677	25.88%	69	23.00%
Lisandro de la Torre	Alejandro Carbó		Democratic Progressive Party	98,876	13.71%	57	19.00%
Juan B. Justo	Nicolás Repetto		Socialist Party	66,397	9.21%	14	4.67%
Parties without defined ticket			Dissident Radical Civic Union	28,116	3.90%	19	6.33%
			Argentine Socialist Party	347	0.05%	0	0.00%
Positive votes				721,215	96.48%
Blank and invalid votes				26,256	3.52%
Turnout				747,471	62.71%	298	99.33%
Registered voters				1,189,254	100.00%	300	100.00%
Historia Electoral Argentina (1912 - 2007)

Electoral Vote

Presidential Candidates		Party	Electoral Votes
	Hipólito Yrigoyen	Radical Civic Union	152
	Ángel Dolores Rojas	Conservative Party	104
	Lisandro de la Torre	Democratic Progressive Party	20
	Juan B. Justo	Socialist Party	14
	Alejandro Carbó	Democratic Progressive Party	8
Total voters			298
Did not vote			2
Total			300

Vice Presidential Candidates		Party	Electoral Votes
	Pelagio Luna	Radical Civic Union	152
	Juan Eugenio Serú	Conservative Party	103
	Alejandro Carbó	Democratic Progressive Party	20
	Nicolás Repetto	Socialist Party	14
	Carlos Ibarguren	Democratic Progressive Party	8
	Julio Argentino Pascual Roca	Conservative Party	1
Total voters			298
Did not vote			2
Total			300

Electoral Vote by Province

Province	President						Vice President
	Yrigoyen	Rojas	de la Torre	Justo	Carbó		Luna	Serú	Carbó	Repetto	Ibarguren	Roca
Buenos Aires City	30			14			30			14
Buenos Aires	20	40					20	40
Catamarca	3		7				3		7
Córdoba	18	7					18	7
Corrientes	6	12					6	12
Entre Ríos	15	7					15	7
Jujuy	2	6					2	6
La Rioja	2	6					2	6
Mendoza	8	4					8	3				1
Salta	4	8					4	8
San Juan	3	7					3	7
San Luis		3	7					3	7
Santa Fe	19				8		19				8
Santiago del Estero	10	4					10	4
Tucumán	12		6				12		6
Total	152	104	20	14	8		152	103	20	14	8	1
Sources:[4][5]

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%

[6]

Notes: a) seats left vacant.

References

1. Todo Argentina: Roque Sáenz Peña (in Spanish)
2. Nouzeilles, Gabriella and Motaldo, Graciela. The Argentina Reader. Duke University Press, 2002.
3. Todo Argentina: 1916 Archived 2018-07-17 at the Wayback Machine (in Spanish)
4. Diario de sesiones de la Cámara de Senadores - Año 1916 - Tomo I. Buenos Aires: Talleres Gráficos de L. J. Rosso y Cía. 1916. pp. 88–110.
5. Duhalde, Eduardo Luis (2007). Acción Parlamentaria de John William Cooke. Buenos Aires: Colihue. p. 232. ISBN 978-950-563-460-6.
6. Nohlen, Dieter. Elections in the Americas. Oxford University Press, 2005.