1937 Argentine presidential election

← 1931 5 September 1937 1946 →
376 members of the Electoral College 189 votes needed to win
Registered	2,672,750
Turnout	76.17%
Nominee Roberto M. Ortiz Marcelo T. de Alvear Party Antipersonalist Radical Civic Union [es] Radical Civic Union Alliance Concordance — Running mate Ramón Castillo Enrique Mosca Electoral vote 248 128 States carried 11 3 +CF Popular vote 1,097,660 814,750 Percentage 55.77% 41.39%
Most voted party by province.
President before election Agustín P. Justo National Democratic Party Elected President Roberto M. Ortiz National Democratic Party

TheArgentine presidential election of 1937 was held on 5 September 1937.

The 1931 elections (boycotted by the previous ruling party, the centristRadical Civic Union) proved to be a precedent for the 1937 elections, called to replace outgoing PresidentAgustín Justo. Justo had ruled as anenlightened despot, subordinating national policy to entrenched commercial interests and encouraging systemic fraud in gubernatorial and legislative polls held in 1935, while also promoting record public works spending. His administration initiated the nation's first paved intercity roads, Buenos Aires' massiveNueve de Julio Avenue, and theUniversity of Buenos Aires School of Medicine, among other works. Even as it recovered from theGreat Depression, however, Argentina's increasingly urban and industrialized social profile bode poorly for the ruling Concordance, an alliance dominated by the conservative, rural landowner-orientedNational Autonomist Party (who held power from 1874 to 1916).^[1]

The movement which displaced them in 1916, the centrist, urban-orientedRadical Civic Union (UCR), turned toMarcelo Torcuato de Alvear for leadership following the military overthrow of its long-time leader and Alvear's rival,Hipólito Yrigoyen, in 1930. The scion of one of Argentina's traditional landed families and President from 1922 to 1928 (when his alliance with Yrigoyen soured), Alvear was respected largely for challenging Yrigoyen's personality cult (hence his reputation as the leading "Antipersonalist") and for his decision to boycott the 1931 election, given its uneven playing field.^[2][3]

Negotiations between President Justo and Alvear, who was allowed to return from exile, led to the UCR's lifting of its electoral boycott and to its resurgence by its election in 1936 ofAmadeo Sabattini as Governor ofCórdoba Province as well as victories inTucumán Province and in Legislative elections (where despite Justo's orchestrated fraud, they obtained 56 of 158 seats - one more than the Concordance's Congressional stand-ins, the National Democrats).^[4][3]

The UCR nominated the elder statesman its standard bearer in 1937. A seasoned campaigner, Alvear made a compelling choice for his running mate, former CongressmanEnrique Mosca. A vocal opponent of the 1930 Coup d'état despite his differences with President Yrigoyen, Mosca spent the next three and a half years inUshuaia's notorious prison (now a museum). Alvear was not universally supported by Argentine progressives, however, and he failed to secure the endorsement ofArturo Jauretche's influential pro-industrializationpolitical action committee,FORJA. Alvear was also deprived of a strong potential ally when the leader of theDemocratic Progressive Party (PDP),Lisandro de la Torre, resigned from theSenate in protest over his inability to thwart the prevailing climate of corruption and impunity. His running mate in 1931,Nicolás Repetto, accepted theSocialist Party's nomination. Senator de la Torre's attempted assassination and the 1936 removal of the PDP's sole governor,Luciano Molinas ofSanta Fe Province, became poster children of the "patriotic fraud" that set the stage for the 1937 elections.^[5]

President Justo left his party's nomination to its most influential voice, British commercial interests. Dominating his administration's trade and budgetary policies since theRoca-Runciman Treaty of 1933, they advanced the lead attorney for one of the largest British-ownedrailway carriers as the ruling party's nominee:Roberto Ortiz. Their considerations outweighed others in the party, whoseconservatism clashed with the pragmatic Ortiz. The talented lawyer assuaged tensions at the party's July convention by choosingRamón Castillo, anultraconservative lawmaker from then-feudalCatamarca Province, as his running mate (this seemingly token gesture was quite significant: Ortiz suffered from advancedType II diabetes).^[6]

Flouting his 1935 gentlemen's agreement with Alvear, Justo kept his political and security forces occupied on election day, September 5. Amid widespread reports ofintimidation,ballot stuffing and voter roll tampering (whereby, according to one observer, "democracy was extended to the hereafter"), Ortiz won the elections handily.^[7] One of the beneficiaries of the system of "patriotic fraud" advanced during the "Infamous Decade,"Buenos Aires Province GovernorManuel Fresco, himself termed the 1937 Argentine general elections as "one of the most fraudulent in history"^[8] (Fresco was himself removed by President Ortiz's decree in 1940 at the behest of ultraconservatives).^[9]

• National Democratic Party - Concordance alliance (moderately conservative): Minister of FinanceRoberto Ortiz of the city ofBuenos Aires
• Radical Civic Union (centrist): Former PresidentMarcelo Torcuato de Alvear of the city of Buenos Aires
• Socialist Party: Former DeputyNicolás Repetto of the city of Buenos Aires

• 
  Ortiz
• 
  Alvear
• 
  Repetto

• 1937 elections in South America
• 1937 in Argentina
• Presidential elections in Argentina
• Infamous Decade
• September 1937

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