Radical Civic Union - History

History

The party was a spin-off of the Civic Union, which was led by Bartolomé Mitre and Leandro Alem The party unsuccessfully led an attempt to force the early departure of President Miguel Juárez Celman in the Revolution of the Park (Revolución del Parque). Eventually a compromise was reached with Juárez Celman's government. Hard-liners who opposed this agreement founded the current UCR, led by Alem's nephew, the young and charismatic Hipólito Yrigoyen. In 1893 and 1905 the party led unsuccessful revolutions to overthrow the government. With the introduction of free, fair and confidential voting in elections based on universal adult male suffrage in 1912 the Party managed to win the general elections of 1916, when Hipólito Yrigoyen became president. The Radical Civic Union remained in power during the next 14 years: Yrigoyen was succeeded by Marcelo T. de Alvear in 1922 and by himself in 1928. The first coup in Argentina's modern history occurred on September 6, 1930 and ousted an aging Yrigoyen amid an economic crisis resulting from the United States' Great Depression.

From 1930 to 1958 the Radical Civic Union was confined to be the main opposition party, either to the Conservatives and the military during the 1930s and the early 1940s or to the Peronism during the late 1940s - early 1950s. It was only in 1958 when a faction of the party allied with banned peronists (the so-called Intransigent Radical Civic Union) came back to power, led by Arturo Frondizi. The growing tolerance of Frondizi towards his peronist allies provoked unrest in the army, which ousted the president in March 1962. After a brief military government, presidential elections took place in 1963 with the Peronist Party banned (as in 1958). The outcome of the elections saw the candidate of the People's Radical Civic Union (the other party's faction) Arturo Illia coming in the first place but with only 25% of the votes (approximately 19% of the votes were blank due to the peronism's banning). Although Argentina experienced during Illia's presidency one of the most successful periods of history in terms of the economic performance, the president was ousted by the army in June 1966. Illia's peaceful and ordered style of governing - sometimes considered too "slow" and "boring" - was being heavily criticized at the time.

During the 1970s Peronist government (1973–1976), the Radical Civic Union was the second most voted party, but this didn't actually grant the party the role of being the political opposition. In fact, the Peronist government's most important criticisms came from the same Peronist Party (now called Justicialist Party). The UCR's leader in those times, Ricardo Balbín, saluted Peron's coffin (Perón had died on July 1, 1974, during his third mandate as president) with the famous sentence "This old adversary salutes a great friend", thus marking the end of the peronist-radical rivalry that had marked the pace of the Argentine political scene until then. The growing fight between left-wing and right-wing Peronists took the country into chaos and many UCR members were targeted by both factions. The subsequent coup in 1976 ended the Peronist experience and "disappeared" many members of the UCR party as well.

Between 1983 and 1989 its leader, Raúl Ricardo Alfonsín, was the first democratically elected president after the military dictatorship headed by generals such as Jorge Videla, Leopoldo Galtieri and Reynaldo Bignone. Alfonsín was succeeded by Carlos Saúl Menem of the Peronist Justicialist Party (PJ).

In 1997 the UCR participated in elections in coalition with Front for a Country in Solidarity (FREPASO), itself an alliance of many smaller parties. This strategy brought Fernando de la Rúa to the presidency in the 1999 elections. During major riots triggered by economic reforms implemented by the UCR government (with the advice of the International Monetary Fund), President de la Rúa resigned and fled the country to prevent further turmoil. After three consecutive acting presidents assumed duties in the following weeks, Eduardo Duhalde of the PJ took office until new elections could be held.

After the 2001 legislative elections it became the second largest party in the federal Chamber of Deputies, winning 71 of 257 seats. It campaigned in an alliance with the smaller, more leftist FREPASO. The party has subsequently declined markedly and its candidate for President in 2003 gained just 2.34% of the vote, beaten by three Peronists and more seriously, by two former radicals, Ricardo López Murphy of Recrear and Elisa Carrió of ARI, who have leached members, support and profile from the UCR. In the 2005 legislative elections, the UCR was reduced to 35 deputies and 13 senators, but remains the second force in Argentine politics.