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Politics and Elections in Buenos Aires, 1890-1898: The Performance of the Radical PartyAuthor(s): Paula AlonsoSource: Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 25, No. 3 (Oct., 1993), pp. 465-487Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/158264 .

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Politics and Elections in Buenos Aires,I890-1898: The Performance of theRadical Party*PAULA ALONSO

Three main political parties regularly contested elections in Argentina inthe late nineteenth century: the Partido Autonomista Nacional (PAN), theUni6n Civica Nacional (UCN), and the Uni6n Civica Radical (UCR).1However, little is known about the nature of party competition, thecontesting parties' electoral performances or the characteristics of theirelectoral support. Discussion of the electoral politics prior to 9I 2, whenthe vote became secret and compulsory for all Argentine males over 18years of age, has been dominated by notions of corruption, repression andlack of opportunity for popular participation. While in other countriessuch assessments have been revised in recent years after unreformedelections were analysed in more detail, accounts of electoral repression arestill dominant in discussions of the pre- 912 Argentine electoral system.2

According to the standard interpretation of the development ofArgentina's political system, the PAN or 'landed oligarchy' dominatedpolitics between i88o and I916. To maintain itself in power, the PANemployed fraud and electoral repression extensively, preventing theemerging new social forces (mainly the middle class) from exercising theirright to vote. Although the law gave the right to vote to all Argentine* I would like to thank Jeremy Adelman, Alan Angell, Alexandra de Brito, MalcolmDeas, Ezequiel Gallo, Francis Korn, Carlos Malamud and Marco Palacios for detailedcomments. My special thanks to Andrew Powell and Mora Gortari for helping me withthe data. This article was written while I was a Research Fellow at St. Antony's College,Oxford and the University of Warwick.1The Socialist Party, formed in i894, is not included in this study as its incipient

participation in the elections of i896 and 1898 was 'symbolic'. It contested only a fewelectoral districts of the city of Buenos Aires.2 For recent reviews on the electorate and on the electoral practices of pre-reformEngland see for example F. O'Gorman, Voters, Patrons and Parties. The UnreformedElectoralSystemof HanoverianEngland,1734-1832 (Oxford, 1989); J. A. Phillips, ElectoralBehaviour n UnreformedEngland. Plumpers,Splitters andStraights(Princeton, New Jersey,1982).Paula Alonso is Lecturer in Latin American History and Politics, University of Bristol.

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 25, 465-487 Copyright ? 1993 Cambridge University Press 465

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466 Paula Alonsomales over 17 years of age, the received view is that in practice the PANkept this right restricted to a privileged few by means of electoralmanipulation. Furthermore, the argument continues, the PAN's politicaland electoral malpractices impeded the development of party competition,frustrating any attempt by opposition parties to compete in electionsduring these years. The Radical Party, which emerged to oppose the PANin the I89os, and which represented the newly emerging middle class,abstained for many years from electoral competition until the passing ofthe 1912 electoral law. By making the vote secret and compulsory, it isargued, the 1912 law expanded the vote from the privileged few to themiddle and working classes.3

The prevalent view of the country's political and electoral developmenthas recently been challenged by Hilda Sabato. In a stimulating articlewhich concentrates on the period between I850 and I880, she argues thatthe political system prior to 1912 was not based on the electoralparticipation of a privileged few, but on the mobilisation of the lowerclasses. These popular sectors (the peons, the journeymen and theunskilled workers) were marched to the polls on election day, directed byparty factions. Elections were merely an expression of inter-factionalfighting through the deployment of the socially marginal in contests thatwere violent, systematically manipulated and fraudulent. Nevertheless,Sabato argues, there was no pressure to change the system as differentsectors of the population channelled their demands and manifested theiropinions in ways other than going to the polls. According to thisargument, 9 2 had a major impact on Argentina's political life. It was notthe case that the citizenry had to be expanded, as the prevalent view states,but that it needed to be created, given that the well-to-do had notpreviously participated in the country's electoral life.4

Although stemming from different perspectives, the prevalent view and3 Most works of Argentine historiography followed this line of argument, although

differing in their accounts of oligarchical repression. Among the finest are: D. Cant6n,Elecciones partidos politicos en la Argentina. Historia, interpretacidn balance: 19o0-1966(Buenos Aires, 1973); G. Germani, Politicay sociedaden una epocade transicion.De lasociedad radicionala la sociedad emasas(Buenos Aires, 1965), pp. 147-56, and 'Hacia unademocracia de masas', in T. Di Tella et al., Argentina, sociedadde masas (Buenos Aires,I965), pp. 206-27; J. L. Romero, A History of Argentine Political Thought(Stanford,I963), pp. I83-218. For examples of some recent works that have also followed thesetraditional arguments see P. H. Smith, Argentina and the Failure of Democracy.ConflictamongPolitical Elites, I904-i9yf (Madison, Wisconsin, 1974), pp. 1-22; D. Rock, Politicsin Argentina, I89o-i90o. The Rise and Fall of Radicalism (Cambridge, I975), pp. I-66;K. Remmer, Party Competitionin Argentina and Chile. Political Recruitmentand PublicPolicy, 189o-Igjo (Lincoln and London, 1984), pp. 24- 3, 87-I 1.4 Hilda Sabato, 'Citizenship, Political Participation and the Formation of the PublicSphere in Buenos Aires i85os-I88os', Past and Present, no. 136 (August I992), pp.139-62.


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Elections in BuenosAires, I890-1898 467Sabato's argument have many points in common: both downgrade thenature of electoral contests and the electorate in the period prior to I9 12.For the standard view, elections were simply an exercise in repression andmanipulation by the elite, enabling them to keep the reins of power intheir hands. For Sabato, elections did not imply party competition for thevotes of individual citizens, but the mobilisation of the less qualifiedworkers for street fighting on election day. More significantly, both viewsargue that the political system prior to 1912 failed to provide the basis forgradual progress towards a fully democratic system, either because thenew social sectors were kept aloof from electoral participation by fraud,or because elections meant only the mobilisation of the socially marginal.The abrupt transition from a restrictive republic to a modern democracyplaced considerable pressure on the political system, and was thereforepartly responsible for the short life of the new democratic system.5

Through a detailed analysis of the elections of the city of Buenos Airesin the I890s, this article offers an alternative explanation regarding thenature of the elections, the voters, the competition of political parties andof the development of Argentina's political system. It argues that partycompetition developed in the city of Buenos Aires in the 89os and thatelections were vigorously contested by all political parties. Newquantitative data on the characteristics of the electorate of the citychallenge the view that it was mainly composed of a privileged few orthat it was restricted to the working class. The data also allow an analysisof the socio-economic composition of the parties' electoral support.Special attention is paid to the electoral performance of the Radical Partyand to the nature of its electorate. As the UCR was the opposition partyduring these years, a closer look at its performance is of particularassistance in improving our understanding of the electoral politics of theperiod. The findings also raise significant questions for existing views onthe meaning of the 19I 2 reform in the transition from a restrictive republicto a modern democratic system, at least as far as concerns Buenos Aires.The political partiesThe PAN, the UCN and the UCR were the main parties regularlycontesting the elections of the I89os in Buenos Aires. The PAN, generallyconsidered the representative of the landed elite, was originally created in

5 This argument is fully developed in Remmer, Party Competition,esp. pp. 24-34, 22 I-2.Others, however, argue that 1912 only introduced a limited reform given that the votewas restricted to Argentine nationals and that large sectors of the working class andsome members of the middle class were immigrants who had not acquired Argentinecitizenship. Nevertheless, they consider that 9 12 marked a transition from a restrictiverepublic to an open democracy. See Smith, Argentina, pp. II-I2; Rock, Politics inArgentina, pp. 34-9.


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468 Paula Alonsothe 1870s as a League of Governors, a national coalition of provincialleaders who put their influence behind a presidential candidate to competeagainst the two portenoparties: Alsina's Partido Autonomista and Mitre'sPartido Liberal or Nacionalista. In 1880, the PAN took Julio Roca to hisfirst presidency (i880-6) after an electoral victory followed by a militarytriumph over the defeated candidate Carlos Tejedor, Governor ofBuenos Aires. Tejedor's defeats provoked the decline of the portenoparties; many party members went over to the PAN.6The decline of the porteno parties left Roca and his successor MiguelJuarez Celman (1886-90) without major opposition. This enabled the twopresidents of the i 88os to introduce a series of institutional, economic andpolitical changes that profoundly transformed the country. The estab-lishing of Buenos Aires as the capital of the Republic, the disbanding ofprovincial militias, the establishment of common primary education forthe whole country and the organisation of the judiciary were some of theinstitutional transformations introduced during the decade. The aimbehind them was to centralise power in the hands of the centralgovernment as a means of consolidating the strength of the nationalauthorities in an endemically rebellious country.7

Argentina experienced profound and rapid economic transformationduring the i88os. The relative political stability experienced during thoseyears, the amount of capital invested, the expansion of the railways andmassive European immigration combined to transform a backwardcountry into what was soon to be one of the world's leading exporters ofgrain and meat.8 In the political sphere, during the i88os the PANbenefited from the absence of an organised opposition. Furthermore, theuse of both formal constitutional prerogatives (such as federal interventionand impeachment) and informal instruments (money, influence andcontrol of the administration), were used to maintain the unity of the partyand to discourage the formation of opposition parties.9The decade of the i88os was also characterised by an ideologicalconsensus about the country's need for peace, for strong centralgovernment and for economic progress.10 After the revolution of i880, it

6 See Ezequiel Gallo, 'La gran expansi6n economica y la consolidaci6n del regimenconservador liberal. I875-I890', in E. Gallo and R. Cortes Conde, Argentina. LaRepublicaconservadoraBuenos Aires, 1972), pp. 61-70.7 See Ezequiel Gallo, 'Argentina: Society and Politics, I880-1916', in L. Bethell (ed.),The CambridgeHistory of Latin America, vol. V (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 362-3.

8 For the economic development of Argentina see C. F. Diaz Alejandro, Essays on theEconomicHistory of the Argentine Republic(New Haven and London, 1970), pp. 1-66.9 See N. Botana, El ordenconservador.La politica argentinaentre1880-1916 (Buenos Aires,I977), pp. 65-213.

10 For the ideological consensus achieved in the i88os see T. Halperin Donghi, Proyectoy construccione una nacion(Argentina I846-i88o) (Caracas, 1980), pp. lxxvi-ci.


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Elections in Buenos Aires, I890-1898 469became a commonly held belief that Argentina's tradition of turbulentpolitics and frequent outbreaks of violence had hindered the country'spotential economic progress and had retarded its national organisation.This general creed of peace and prosperity had important implications forthe way in which members of the PAN defined the role of 'politics' andof political parties. Politics was the means peacefully to accommodatedifferent interests and the PAN's coalition was the channel through whichconflicts were resolved, candidatures agreed and revolts avoided. Politicalparties therefore had a limited role in society. In the PAN's view, theywere only 'temporary associations' whose function was to bring acandidate to office, after which they should be dissolved 'to allow societyto return to peace'.1

After a decade of political stability and economic growth, the economicand political mismanagement of Juairez Celman brought about a deepeconomic crisis and aroused strong opposition in the city of BuenosAires.12 An older generation ofporteno politicians (such as Leandro Alem,Bartolome Mitre, and Bernardo de Irigoyen) and a new generation ofuniversity students together founded the Uni6n Civica (UC) in the lastmonths of 1889. With the help of some dissatisfied army officers the UClaunched a revolution against the National Government in July 1890,which, although defeated, forced Juarez to resign the following month,leaving Vice-President Carlos Pellegrini, a leading member of the PAN,in power for the remainder of the presidential term.The UC had a short existence. In March I891 Roca and Mitre, aspresidents of the PAN and of the UC, reached an agreement under whichelectoral confrontation for the presidential election of I892 would beavoided and the presidential candidate would be elected by the mutualagreement of the two parties. A section of the UC led by Alem andIrigoyen rejected this deal, split from the party and founded the Uni6nCivica Radical (UCR). Mitre remained the leader of the UC which adoptedthe label of Union Civica Nacional (UCN). The electoral deal between theUCN and the PAN soon ended, following the presidential election of LuisSaenz Pefia (I892-4). After that, the UCN found itself in a peculiarsituation. Inside and outside Congress it behaved as an independent party,at times supporting the government and at times not. For electoralpurposes, however, the UCN resorted to temporary electoral alliances

'Mensaje del Presidente de la Repiiblica, Julio A. Roca, al abrir las sesiones delCongreso Argentino, en mayo I88I', in H. Mabragafia, Los mensajes.Historia deldesenvolvimientoe la nacidnargentinaredactadacronologicamenteor susgobernantes, 8I1o- o(Buenos Aires, I910), vol. IV, p. 3.12 For a political and economic history of Juarez's presidency see W. T. Duncan,'Government by Audacity. Politics and the Argentine Economy, i885-I892', unpubl.PhD diss., University of Melbourne, I981.19 LAS 25


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470 Paula Alonsowith the PAN. Two main reasons prompted the adoption of this strategy.First, the electoral system penalised minority parties as it did not allow forproportional representation. Secondly, as we shall see, had the PAN andthe UCN not resorted to electoral deals in the city of Buenos Aires, theywould have been defeated by the Radicals.In the I89os the Radicals became the greatest challenge to the PAN.The UCR was organised to oppose the institutional, economic andpolitical transformations undertaken by the presidents of the I88os. Forthe Radicals, the PAN had burst onto the political scene, disrupting theinstitutional, political and economic traditions enjoyed since the I85os.The centralisation of power had resulted in the decay of the political lifeof the republic and in the divorce of government from public opinion.The previously healthy political life of the country, when powerfulpolitical parties competed against each other, had been replaced by theone-party predominance of the 8 os. Protectionist economic policies hadcome to replace Argentina's tradition of free-trade.13

Although the Radicals were a minority party in the 89os, they becamethe most destabilising political force in the country. In their view, thePAN's betrayal of the country's traditions justified any attempt to topplethe government and to this end they organised a series of revolutions, allof which were eventually defeated. However, the fact that the UCR alsocompeted in elections against the government, becoming a well-organisedforce that posed a real electoral threat in Buenos Aires, has generally beenoverlooked.The city of Buenos AiresIn 1891, Bartolome Mitre received the following letter from the remoteregion of Catamarca:Electionsin this provinceareveryexpensivebecausethe ruralpopulation s veryscatteredand voters have to be brought long distanceson horseback,we havingto paythe cost of supportingmen and animals or threedays.Given this andthepresent poverty, there will be no local opposition this year.14

A vast and underpopulated countryside and the expense of managingelections were only some of the constraints faced by opposition parties inthe provinces. To this should be added the political predominance of thePAN in the interior and the difficulties imposed by the electoral system oflista completaor 'winner takes all'. Under this system, the party list which13 These arguments and the events that prompted the formation of the UCR are furtherdiscussed in P. Alonso, 'The Origins of the Argentine Radical Party, 1889-1898',

unpubl. PhD diss., University of Oxford, I992.14 F. F. Avellaneda to B. Mitre, Catamarca, i6 Sept. 1891, Archivo Mitre,A8CI8C53NI3333.


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Elections in BuenosAires, 1890-1898 471obtained the most votes won all the contested seats of the district. As itdid not allow for proportional representation, the system of lista completadiscriminated against minority parties and discouraged the developmentof a multi-party system.15 Furthermore, the city of Buenos Aires and theprovinces each composed single electoral districts16and, as Arist6bulo delValle explained to Miguel Cane, these large districts presented furtherdifficulties for opposition parties:Our transitorypoliticalpartieslacksufficientorganisation o extend successfullytheir action to all the localities. The influenceof the local party gets lost in thevast area and mass of voters of the whole province. The influence of thegovernors is the only one which can triumph; through the channels of theadministration, hey can reachthe outmost partof the territory."7Politics in large cities was significantly different from that in thecountryside, and Buenos Aires presented a sharp contrast to the interior.Traditionally, Buenos Aires had been at the core of the country's politicalactivities. Its political life has always been agitated in comparison to thatof the provinces - and it was certainly agitated in the 89os. Buenos Aireshad the largest population of the country and the most politically awareelectorate. Its inhabitants demonstrated, rioted, went on strike, signedpetitions, voted and were kept constantly informed by the 143 newspapersand magazines that circulated in the city at the time.l8Elections in Buenos Aires were more free from fraud and violence thanthose in the provinces. Even the electoral system of lista completaaffectedBuenos Aires differently from the rest of the country. While the capitalcomprised a single electoral district, it was smaller and more denselypopulated than the provinces. Its population was easier and less expensiveto mobilise than that of the vast and underpopulated countryside.l9 All15 For the effect of electoral systems on party systems see the classic work of M. Duverger,Political Parties. Their Organizationand Activity in the ModernState (London, I959), p.

205. For more up-to-date works on the subject see the series of articles in B. Grofmanand A. Lijphart (eds.), Electoral Laws andtheirPolitical ConsequencesNew York, 1986);V. Bogdanor and D. Butler (eds.), Democracyand Elections. Electoral Systemsand TheirPolitical ConsequencesCambridge, I983), Chapters i, 2 and 13.16 On the representation of each district see C. R. Melo, 'Poblaci6n y representaci6n delos distritos electorales de la naci6n', Revista del Instituto de Historia del Derecho RicardoLevene,No. I3 (Buenos Aires, I962), pp. 106-27.

17 Arist6bulo del Valle to Miguel Cane, 5 May 1890, Archivo Generalde la Nacidn, ArchivoM. Cane, Leg. No. 3, No. 2202.18 Tim Duncan, 'La Prensa Politica: Sud-America', in G. Ferrari and E. Gallo (eds.), La

Argentina del ochentaal centenario(Buenos Aires, 1980), pp. 76I-84. The figures comefrom p. 764.19 While in I895 the city of Buenos Aires had a population density of 3,569.10 per km2,for example, the density of the Province of Buenos Aires, the wealthiest of the country,was 3.02, and of the Province of Salta, one of the poorest regions, was 0.72. Segundocensode la Reptblica Argentina (I89/), vol. II (Buenos Aires, 1898), p. cxxv.19-2


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472 Paula Alonsothree political parties competing in Buenos Aires during the period foundit easy to extend their organisation to the full complement of the i6 citywards. Furthermore, Buenos Aires was the centre of party competition inArgentina. The UCR and the UCN had their strongholds in the city; thePAN was powerful in the provinces, but electorally weaker in the capital.Even in the presidential elections of i886, the powerful candidature ofJuarez Celman lost (although narrowly) in Buenos Aires to a loose portenocoalition called the Partidos Unidos. The contrasts between the capital andthe provinces make generalisations about voting patterns from BuenosAires to the whole country unreliable.Elections in Buenos Aires took place frequently. National elections forthe Presidency and Vice-Presidency took place every six years, the re-election of half the seats of the Chamber of Deputies every two years anda third of the seats of the Senate every three, and to these must be addedthe municipal elections.20 Electoral campaigns usually began around twomonths before each election. In the i89os all three parties were organisedinto decentralised systems of committees and conventions, following theNorth American model. This new party organisation was intended to putan end to the old tradition of caudillismon the selection of party candidatesand to make sure that 'every citizen could be consulted about the politicaldevelopment of the party'.21 Although all three contesting partiesadopted identical internal organisation, the committees of the UCRfunctioned permanently throughout the year while those of the UCN andof the PAN emerged two or three months before elections and disappearedafter the electoral contest.22 The members of the party committees werein charge of mobilising the population during the electoral campaign andof selecting the candidates. The selection of the candidates involvedcampaigning; candidates would visit local committees to give speechesand search for support. Each faction filled the editorials of their respective20 There are two main reasons why this study is restricted to national elections andexcludes the municipal ones. First, the electoral results for municipal elections do not

appear as clearly published in the newspapers. Secondly, the electorate for municipalelections was different from that of the national elections. To be able to vote in themunicipal elections of the city of Buenos Aires the law required that citizens shouldhave paid a minimum of Io pesos in direct tax or 'patentecomercialo industrial', or havea liberal profession and have lived in the city for a minimum of six months, or be aliterate foreigner and have paid 50 pesos in direct tax or 'patente comercialo industrial',and have lived in the city for a minimum of two years before the enrolment in theElectoral Register. See Anuario Estadistico de la ciudad de BuenosAires, I89I, Afio(Buenos Aires, 1891), p. 447. 21 El Argentino, 24 July 1895.22 The received views of party organisation generally point out that the UCR was the onlyparty that followed the North American model. However, the UCN and the PAN werealso organised in decentralised committees and held party conventions for the selectionof candidates. The internal organisation of the political parties in the 89os is discussedin more detail in Alonso, 'The Origins', pp. 114-29.


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Elections in Buenos Aires, 189o-I898 473newspapers with attacks on their opponents and statements of the party'sprinciples.23 There were no significant distinctions between the cam-paigning methods of the three parties.Elections took place on Sundays, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The city wasdivided into i6 electoral districts. In each ward mesasescrutadoraswereplaced in the local churches, under the authority of a group of malecitizens randomly chosen by the local authorities.24 Each party alsoensured that they had a party faithful at each table to check fraud by theopposition, to attempt to perpetrate their own, and to encourage theirfollowers to vote - before 912 the vote was not secret and voters mighteasily be intimidated. Each voter stated on a piece of paper his name,address, number of inscription in the Electoral Register and the name ofthe candidates he voted for. Once the election was over the police werein charge of sending the registers to the Junta Electoral for the countingof the votes. When the counting was finished, the registers were sent toCongress, which was the highest authority for ruling on disputes overelections. Congressmen of all parties then had the opportunity ofexpressing their complaints.It is hardly necessary to point out that elections in Buenos Aires werenot exempt from the usual fraudulent acts and outbreaks of violence.25These occurred throughout the city, from its richest to its poorest areas.The Economistreported in I892 that 'in one of the most aristocratic andwealthy parishes of the city a friend of mine saw a street porter vote fivetimes under as many different names'.26 Edwin Clark, an Englishman whospent some time in Argentina, remembered a more violent scene:During my residence n Buenos Aires, a body of voters quietly going to the pollwere driven back by a volley of musketry from the roof of a neighbouringbuilding, and what is more remarkable, the perpetrators of the outragemaintaineda right to retainthe armsthus used at a time of profound peace.27It would be impossible to quantify the impact of fraud on the electoralresults. However, in analysing the unsavoury aspects of the electoral23 The newspaper of the PAN was Tribuna,that of the UCN was La Nacion, and that ofthe UCR was El Argentino.24 For the regulations of the elections see Ley 893 (759), 'Regimen electoral', in Diario deSesionesde la Cdmara de Diputados (Buenos Aires, 1880), pp. II54-9; for an analysis ofthis law introduced in 1877, see D. Cullen-Crisol, 'Carlos Pellegrini: Leyes electoralesy fraude en la Argentina (1877-I906)', unpubl. MA diss., Instituto Torcuato Di Tella,

199I, pp. 21-40.25 For an analysis of the use of fraud in elections see Botana, El ordenconservador, p.174-89; A. Belin Sarmiento, Una RepublicaMuerta(Buenos Aires, 1970), pp. 10, 13-2 1,39-47; J. N. Matienzo, Elgobierno representativoederal en la RepublicaArgentina (BuenosAires, 1910), pp. 225-52. 26 The Economist,zi May I892.27 The Times, 8 July I880.


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474 Paula Alonsocontests a number of points need to be considered. Fraud was not a keyfeature of all the elections of the I89os and we should not confuse anelection day with a picture of a city in anarchy, close to civil war. Whilein some electoral districts the press reported 'some arguments and fistfights', most of the elections were described as 'without incident'.28Violence and intimidation formed part of the electoral process, but withinlimits. Outbreaks of violence in the I89os were rare and ended once theelection was over without producing any deaths.Furthermore, fraud in the city of Buenos Aires was not 'institu-tionalised'. As mentioned before, the traditional view argues that fraudwas imposed by the PAN, which systematically and successfully repressedopposition groups and the new social forces they represented.29However,as we shall see when analysing the electoral performances of the parties,the electoral results show that there was a high degree of partycompetition and that the opposition was a successful electoral force.The electorateWho went to the polls in the city of Buenos Aires in the i89os? Inquantitative terms, only a small proportion of the city's total populationand only a small percentage of those eligible actually voted. In I895, thecity of Buenos Aires had 663,854 inhabitants. The law established thatArgentine males over I 7 years of age were eligible to vote.30 In the capital,these amounted to 5I,o89.31 The law also established that those qualifiedto vote should be enrolled on the Electoral Register which stated name,address, employment, age and literacy. The Register was renewed everytwo years. In 1891 and 1896, only half of the population eligible to votewas enrolled on the Electoral Register,32 and only half of those who had28 The quotations come from, 'Analisis electoral por parroquia', La Prensa, 23 MarchI895. The press is a valuable source for the description of the elections, usuallypresentinga detailedreporton the events of each ward.29 See note 3, above.30 Unlike most other countries, Argentina abandonedliteracy or levels of income asrequisites for eligibility to vote at a very early stage. For the history of electoral

requirements previous to 1853 see Cant6n, Eleccionesypartidospoliticos, pp. I9-20.31 Segundo enso,vol. II, pp. 11-12. It should be noted that a large part of the populationof Buenos Aires was composed of foreigners. In i895, foreign males in the city ofBuenos Aires amounted to 206,07 and most of them were between 20 and 5o years old.Segundoenso, ol. II, p. io. For the impact of immigration n Buenos Aires and theLitoral area see G. Germani, Mass Immigrationand Modernization n Argentina', inI. Horowitz (ed.), Masses in Latin America (New York, I970), pp. 289-330.32 That was 25,049 in 189I, 22,000 in I895, and 24,200 in I896. This is a relativelyhighnumberin comparisonwith the provinces, where only between 5 and I5 % of those

eligible to vote were enrolled in the Electoral Registers between I86o and I890. SeeG. O. E. Tjarks, Aspectos cuantitativosdelestado econ6micoy socialde laciudadaniaArgentina potencialmente votante (i 86o- 890) ', Boletindel InstitutodeHistoria ArgentinaDr. Emilio Ravignani,Ano XI T.XI (Buenos Aires, i969), no. I8-19, p. 3o.


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Elections in Buenos Aires, 1890-I898 475enrolled went to the polls.33 In the intricate world of elections in theI89os, the fewer the voters the 'cleaner' was the election. As FranciscoBarroetavefia stated in Congress in 1896:When the relation between the voters and the registered exceeds 75 %, it can bepresumed there has been fraud in the election; afortiori [sic] when that percentageexceeds 85 %, and more than afortiori [sic] when it coincides exactly; then it canbe presumed that the election is invalid.34

Considering the turn-out for the period in relation to the totalpopulation eligible to vote, Figure I shows that the numbers of votersvaried from a low point in the by-election of July 1893 (9.2 %) to a highpoint in the first election of 1892 (26 %). The turn-out of 43 % in thepresidential elections of 1898 was an exception to the general rule of lowparticipation.As has been pointed out, the rise of party competition in the I89os didnot reflect a rise in the number of voters. Comparison of the electionsbetween the I88os and early i9oos show that turn-outs, if anything,increased only slightly.35 As we shall see later, this has importantimplications for the analysis of the performance of the Radical Party.Who went to the polls? The standard interpretation argues that only aprivileged few voted and that the 'popular sectors' were excluded. Sabato,on the contrary, says that only the socially marginal males voted, while themiddle and upper classes remained indifferent to electoral politics.36However, these characterisations of the nature of the electorate are mainlybased on comments taken from the press. Most newspapers were ownedor financed by a political party, or very openly expressed their partypreferences. It is generally found in their electoral reports that in those33 This amounted to 9,975 in I893 and to I2,2I3 in 1896. For the election of I896 for

example, the turn-out represented only 1.8 % of the total population of the city, 2 3.9 %of the total population eligible to vote and 50.4% of those enrolled in the ElectoralRegister. This is a small percentage if we compare it with the turn-out of the totalpopulation in Brazil in I894 (2.2%); Chile in i888 (3.46%); Great Britain in I890(12%); France in 1890 (27%) and the United States in i880 (23 %). All these figures,however, refer to the turn-out of the whole country for national elections and thesecountries also had different thresholds for voter eligibility, which makes comparisonproblematic. For Brazil's figures see J. L. Love, 'Political Participation in Brazil,1881-1969', Luso Brazilian Review, vol. VII, no. 2 (Dec. I970), p. 4; for Chile, J. S.Valenzuela, Democratigacidnvia reforma,Appendix; for Great Britain, France and theUnited States see Wolfgan Zapf and Peter Flora, 'Differences in Paths of Development:An Analysis for Ten Countries', in S. N. Eisenstadt and S. Rokkan (eds.), BuildingStates and Nations. Models and Data Resources,vol. I (Beverly Hills, London, 1973), pp.I93-6. 34 Diario de sesionesde la Cdmara de Diputados, 5 May i896, p. 34.35 Botana, El ordenconservador, . 195.

36 Sabato's argument on the low qualifications of the electorate is expanded in HildaSabato and Elias Palti, ' Quien votaba en Buenos Aires?: Practica y teoria delsufragio, I850-I880', Desarrollo Economico,vol. 30, no. 19 (Oct.-Dec. 1990), pp.401-24.


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476 Paula Alonsoelections won by their party, the elections were described as 'clean' andthe voters as 'the representatives of the best of the community', whilethose elections won by the opposition were reported as 'highly fraudulent'and the voters as 'the worse elements of the society'.37 Comments innewspapers concerning the low qualifications of the voters werecommonly used to 'illegitimise' a lost election. For a more accuratepicture of the characteristics of the electorate we need to resort toquantitative methods. For this the national and municipal census andstatistical books of the city of Buenos Aires are of little help. Theinformation they contain refers to the whole population of the city, andthe electorate was only a small percentage of it. Furthermore, all censusesused a different administrative division of the city in disaggregating thedata.38

However, information on the electorate can be obtained from theElectoral Register of the city of Buenos Aires of 896, the only source of45.040.0 - |- Turnout35.0

g 30.00*. 25.0o.( 20.0o(DoI 15.0

10.05.0nnv.v I I I I I I I I I1890 1892/1 1893 1895/1 18961891 1892/2 1894 1895/2 1898

Electionyear/No.Fig. i. Turn-out. Votes castfor nationalelections n thecit of BuenosAires, s89o-8as apercentageof eligiblevotes.Sources:La prensa, 3 Feb. 1890, 8 Feb. 1892, 10 April 1892, 22 July I893,4 Feb. i894, 3 Feb. I895, 24 March i895, 8 March I896, o0April 1896; La Nacidn, 16March I891, 10 April I898.37 See for example the comments made by La Nacidn when reporting the elections won

by the UC (Uni6n Civica) in 1891. La Nacidn, I6 March 1891.38 Until I904, the city of Buenos Aires had seven different administrative divisions: thechurch and parish, the police, the judiciary, the civic register, the schools, themunicipality, and the electoral districts. None of the censuses previous to 1904 took theelectoral division and, when in 1904 all six different divisions of the city were reducedto one, the electoral division had significantly changed.

Igc==

1001

I

210


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Elections in Buenos Aires, I89o0-898 477precise quantitative information on the electorate of Buenos Aires in thenineteenth century that is currently available.39 The Register is composedof all Argentine males over 17 years of age who willingly enrolledthemselves to vote in the elections, and contains their names andaddresses, level of literacy, ages and professions. In his memoirs, however,Angel Carrasco recalls that registration was merely 'the appetiser' of thefraudulent activities that later took place in the election.40 Nonetheless,fraudulent registrations were a minority and the problem has been partlysolved here by excluding from the samples of each ward those registrationswhich had already been nullified.The Electoral Register of 1896 contains a total of 24,200 names dividedaccording to the electoral districts to which the potential voters belonged.A random sample of 1oo names from each of sixteen electoral wards wastaken and has been divided according to eight different professionaldivisions following Szuchman and Sofer's classification.41 This pro-fessional classification was made according to the age and trainingrequired for the job, its level of complexity, and the financial remunerationof each profession. For clarity's sake, this original classification has beensimplified into three divisions, blue collar (working class), non-manual(middle class) and professional (upper class), and it is this classificationthat will be employed in the following discussion.42Table i presents the composition of the electorate in i896.43Of the sample of i,6oo names taken, the average voter was 30 years old.Only 7.5 % of the electorate was illiterate, most of these being either

jornalerosor sailors. This is a small figure taking into account the fact that,in the city of Buenos Aires in 1895, only 78 % of Argentine males over 6years of age could read and write.44 It is also a remarkably small figure ifwe compare it to the Province of Buenos Aires where illiterate voterscomposed 56.38 % of the electorate in I889.45 Theporteno electorate of the189os was more highly qualified than the view on socially marginal males39 The Electoral Register was published by the Boletin Oficial de la RepublicaArgentina(Buenos Aires, Nov., Dec., I895; Jan., Feb., March, I896).40 A. Carrasco, Lo queyo vi desdeel 80... Hombresy episodiosde la transformacionnacional(Buenos Aires, 1947), pp. 38-9. For fraud during the enrolment see also Botana, Elordenconservador, p. 178-9.41 Mark D. Szuchman and Eugene F. Sofer, 'The State of Occupational StratificationStudies in Argentina', Latin AmericanResearchReview,vol. I I, no. i (1976), pp. 159-72.42 Walter's work has been followed in aggregating the professions in three categories.Richard Walter, 'Elections in the City of Buenos Aires during the First Yrigoyen

Administration: Social Class and Political Preferences', Hispanic American HistoricalReview, vol. 48, no. 4 (1978), pp. 604, 610-I3.43 The classification of the professions shown in Table I is only a small example of themore complete classification used in this work, borrowed from Szuchman and Sofer'swork. 44 Segundo enso,vol. II, p. clxxiii.45 Tjarks, 'Aspectos cuantitativos', Appendix, Table II.


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478 Paula AlonsoTable i. Characteristics of the electorate in Buenos Aires by ward

Percentage in each professionalAverage groupage Percentage(in years) literate i 2 3

I Catedral N. 29.0 NA 41.8 40.7 17.62 Catedral S. 31.7 99 14.3 64.8 20.93 S. Miguel 31.9 99 z8.i 57.3 14.64 S. Nicolis 38.6 99 21.7 48.9 29.35 Monserrat 28.3 o00 44.6 37.3 I8.I6 Piedad 28.6 92 50.0 41.1 8.97 Balvanera 28.4 99 43.3 46.4 10-38 S. Crist6bal 31.3 84 6 .6 3 .3 7.9 Socorro 28.3 95 40.4 41.6 i8.oo1 S. Telmo 31-7 92 53.1 37.5 9-4II Concepci6n 29.9 o00 33.7 50.0 i6.3I2 Sta. Lucia 30.4 88 57.7 36,. 6.213 S. J. Evangelista 28.3 8i 59.2 37.8 3.114 Pilar 28.6 92 57.6 29.3 i3.1

15 Belgrano 27.0 89 56.o 37.4 6.6i6 Flores 32.8 78 6i.2 29.6 9.2Averages across all wards 30.3 9z-5 45.3 41.7 13.0

NA, not available.Professions:Group I (Working Class): Journeyman (jornalero), sailor (marino), mason (albanfil),carpenter (carpintero), gardener (jardinero), tailor (sastre), rural labourer (pe6n), baker(panadero), shoemaker (zapatero), coach driver (cochero), cooper (tonelero), blacksmith(herrero).Groupz (Middle Class): journalist (periodista), broker (corredor), musician (muisico), cattleowner (ganadero), commissions agent (comisionista), manufacturer (fabricante), merchant(comerciante).Group 3 (Upper Class): notary (escribano), military man (militar), professor (profesor),doctor (doctor), lawyer (abogado), engineer (ingeniero), accountant (contador).Note: Although the authors provide an English translation of the professions, in a numberof cases I used my own translations. The interested reader may therefore find it easier tolocate particular professions in Szuchman's listing in Spanish than in English.

allows. It is difficult to know if these 92. 5% of potential voters used theirreading faculties to inform themselves on party issues or platformspublished by the press before going to the polls. However, the largemajority of the electorate could read at least the lists of candidatespresented to them when they had to state on a piece of paper the list oftheir choice. Although more research on the relationship between partiesand voters is needed, the qualifications of the electorate suggest thatpersuasion may have been a more common tool than force in the electoralpolitics of the I189os.

What does the analysis by professions tell us? While the figures showthat working class voters composed a large sector of the electorate


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Elections in Buenos Aires, I890-1898 479(45.3 %), they were closely followed by the members of the middle-classprofessions (41.7 %).46 Against the received view, therefore, theelectorate seems not to have been mainly composed of the privileged fewor of the lower sectors. On the contrary, middle-class voters comprised alarge percentage of the electorate. In six wards, middle-class inscriptionsoutnumbered those from the working class. This is less surprising if wetake into account that the middle class grew significantly as a social sectorbetween I869 and the I900s.47 On the other hand, the upper sectors(professional group 3) composed only a minority of the electorate. Thisis to be expected given that they were a minority of the total populationof the city as a whole. Nevertheless, their presence in the register shouldnot be underestimated. In nine wards out of 16 they represented morethan o % of the electorate.

How was the electorate spread throughout the city? When analysingthe characteristics of the city of Buenos Aires, it has been generallypointed out that the city offered a remarkable juxtaposition of high andlow sectors of the population.48 However, the correlations49 between theaverage property price in each electoral ward and professional groups i,2, and 3 presented in Table 2 offer no surprises.50The strong positive correlation between house prices and professionalgroups 2 and 3 shows a larger presence of these groups in those wards46 The simple averages quoted may be subject to a bias if the numbers of each professionalgroup are correlated with the numbers enrolled on the electoral register in each ward.However, weighted averages, with weights reflecting ward sizes, only change thesefigures by up to 3 %. 47 Germani, Politicay sociedad,pp. 220-3.48 For a description of the evolution of Buenos Aires see J. Scobie, BuenosAires. Plaza toSuburb, I870-1910 (New York, 1974); James Scobie, 'The Argentine Capital in theNineteenth Century', in S. R. Ross and T. F. McGann, (eds.), BuenosAires: 400 Years(Austin, Texas, I982), pp. 40-52. For the development of the house market in BuenosAires see Francis Korn and Lidia de la Torre, 'La vivienda en Buenos Aires,I887-1914', Desarrollo Economico,vol. 25, no. 98 (July-Sept. i985), pp. 245-58;C. Sargent, The Spatial Evolutionof Greater BuenosAires, Argentina, i870-1903 (Arizona,1974), pp. 29-30. James Scobie, 'Buenos Aires as a Commercial-Burocratic City,1880- 9o10:Characteristics of a City's Orientation', The AmericanHistoricalReview,vol.77, no. 4 (Oct. I972), pp. 1035-73; F. Korn, Buenos Aires 189y. Una ciudad moderna(Buenos Aires, 1981), pp. Ii-I6, 47-50, 61-4.49 The Pearson correlation coefficient is a measure of association between two variables.It lies between + I (positive association) and - i (negative association). In this case thevariables used are rankings and the coefficient is sometimes referred to as the Spearmanrank order correlation coefficient. See S. Siegel and N. J. Castellan Jr., Non-ParametricStatisticsfor the BehavioralSciences(New York, 1988), pp. 2 35-7.50 Information on house prices in the districts of Buenos Aires was taken from

'Transferencia de inmuebles', Anuario Estadistico de la Ciudad de BuenosAires (BuenosAires, Ano I: I891, Aio 2: I892, Afio 3: 1893, Ao 4: 1894, Afo 5: I895, Aio 6: 1896,Afio 7: 1897, Afio 8: 1898). The index for property prices was made according to theaverage price per square metre of all the properties sold and bought each year in eachdistrict. It is the only information available in which the information is displayedaccording to the electoral division of the city.


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480 Paula Alonso

Table 2. Pearson'scorrelationof houseprices andprofessional roups1892 I894 I895 1896 I898

I -0.84 -0.84 -0.84 -0.84 -0.642 o.7I 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.593 0.76 0.76 0.75 0.78 0.59

Source: Anuario estadisticode la ciudadde BuenosAires (Buenos Aires, I891-8).

where house prices were higher. The absence of group i in the wealthiestareas is reflected by the strong negative correlation. The explanation forthis straightforward result, in spite of the alleged high degree ofjuxtaposition of different sectors of the population, can be found in theabsence of immigrants on the Electoral Register. Though the city wascharacterised by the contiguity of the rich, the poor and all differentdegrees between them, the poorest sectors of the population werecomposed of immigrants who could not vote and were therefore notincluded in the Electoral Register. It should be mentioned that thesestraightforward results can confirm that the Electoral Register was arelatively 'clean' one, as 'suspicious' large sectors of working class voterswere not found in wealthy areas or vice-versa.

In spite of the inevitable degree of arbitrariness that generallyaccompanies quantitative analyses,51the evidence taken from the ElectoralRegister of 1896 challenges the existing views on the characteristics of thevoter in the nineteenth century. Exercise of the right to vote was not inpractice restricted to members of the elite or to the socially marginal.Almost all members of the electorate knew how to read and write and, interms of their social composition, they broadly represented all sectors ofthe population.Theparties' electoralperformancesFigure 2 displays the electoral results for all ten national elections thattook place in the city of Buenos Aires between i890 and 1898.If we take into account only the contested elections (1892/I, 1894,1895/2, I896, 1898), the most outstanding feature is the high degree ofparty competition. With the exception of the presidential election of 1898,in which the PAN-UCN coalition obtained a comfortable 87% of thevotes, the PAN-UCN won with only 55% of the votes in 1892 and withonly 56 % in I896. The Radicals defeated the PAN-UCN coalition withonly 5 % of the votes in 1894, and was defeated by the UCN who won52 % of the votes in 895. None of the parties had a comfortable majority.51 There is an unavoidable arbitrariness in ranking the voters in different social classeswhen we only know the profession they themselves state in the record.


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Elections in BuenosAires, I890o-I898 481120.0

UCR100.0 xo 0 --- x

PAN80.0 PAN/UCN

o +g 60.0 UCNC-o ' ?+ 0,- UC40.0a. +

20.0 x0.0 I i.0 I | i I I I I I1890 1892/1 1893 1895/1 18961891 1892/2 1894 1895/2 1898Electionyear/No.

Fig. 2. Party votingfor nationalelections n the city of BuenosAires, r89o-8. Sources:La Prensa,3 Feb. 1890, 8 Feb. I892, io April 1892, 22 July 1893, 4 Feb. I894, 3 Feb. I895, 24 MarchI895, 8 March 1896; La Nacion, i6 March 189I, 10 April 1898.On the contrary, the small margins show that each election had to befuriously contested.

Compilation of the voting returns from each of the sixteen wards of thecity of Buenos Aires indicates the absence of regular voting alignments.52

Table 3. The winning party in contested elections (by ward)I892/I 1894 I895/2 I896 I898

I Catedral N. UCR UCR UCR PAN/UCN PAN/UCN2 Catedral S. UCR UCR UCR UCR PAN/UCN3 S. Miguel UCR UCR UCR UCR PAN/UCN4 S. Nicolas PAN/UCN UCR UCR UCR PAN/UCN5 Monserrat UCR UCR UCR PAN/UCN PAN/UCN6 Piedad PAN/UCN UCR UCN PAN/UCN PAN/UCN7 Balvanera UCR UCR UCR PAN/UCN PAN/UCN8 S. Crist6bal UCR UCR NA PAN/UCN PAN/UCN9 Socorro PAN/UCN UCR UCR PAN/UCN PAN/UCNio S. Telmo UCR UCR UCR UCR PAN/UCN

11 Concepci6n UCR UCR UCR UCR PAN/UCN12 Sta. Lucia PAN/UCN UCN UCR UCR PAN/UCN13 S. J. Evangelista PAN/UCN UCR UCN PAN/UCN PAN/UCN14 Pilar PAN/UCN UCR UCR UCR PAN/UCN15 Belgrano PAN/UCN UCR UCR UCR PAN/UCNi6 Flores PAN/UCN UCN UCR PAN/UCN PAN/UCN52 New electoral districts were added to the original I6 after 1894. San Bernardo wascreated in 1895, San Carlos, del Carmen and Velez Sarfield were added in I896 and in

1897 the district of Las Heras was created, while Balvanera was split into Balvanera


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482 Paula Alonso

Table 4. Percentage majority in each ward in contested elections1892/I 1894 I895/2 1896 I898

I Catedral N. 0.4 12.2 11.3 41.8 6I.52 Catedral S. 17.9 13.0 52.2 24.6 13.03 S. Miguel 5.7 i6.6 89.7 2.9 3I.74 S. Nicolas 8.o 18.9 IOO.0 41.6 39.45 Monserrat 7.1 19.4 83.7 0.2 I00.06 Piedad 5 .8 4.2 83.1 70.7 94.97 Balvanera 39.2 32.1 47.7 I3.2 60.88 S. Crist6bal 2.8 34.5 NA 3.7 I00.09 Socorro 18.8 20.4 83.4 8.7 9.9

Io S. Telmo 24.7 2.4 40.1 34.1 98.4i Concepci6n 1.9 39-5 43.4 4I.5 97'.12 Sta. Lucia 97.8 0.5 40.8 27.4 69.513 S. J. Evangelista 2.8 7-4 82.9 96.1 38.614 Pilar 9.1 8.I 24.0 i6.8 59.215 Belgrano 16.7 11.9 22.5 26.1 88.016 Flores 24.2 28.7 1.7 32.2 46.8

Furthermore, Table 4 illustrates that not only did none of the parties winconsistently in any of the wards, but also that the margins by which theydid win were very small.

Considering all the wards in all five contested elections, victories withmore than 50 % of the votes only took place in 22 wards out of a total of79 contested districts. Again, these results challenge the standard view ofone-party domination and institutionalised fraud. The total outcome ofthe elections, the absence of electoral alignments and the small marginsof victory in each contested ward reveal a high degree of competition inthe city of Buenos Aires in the i89os. In this context, competition doesnot necessarily mean 'clean' competition. But it does mean that thegovernment did not 'manufacture' elections, that their outcome could notbe predicted, and that all parties contested elections with a fair chance ofsuccess.The Radical PartyThere are three received ideas about the electoral performance of theUCR. It has been assumed that the UCR was in no condition to competein elections against the PAN, and that it therefore had to resort torevolutionary strategies.53 It has also been pointed out that the main

Norte and Balvanera Sud. As the purpose of this paper is to compare the elections ofthe whole period, the new wards have been left out of this analysis, and in the electionsof i898, Balvanera was counted as one electoral district.53 Eduardo P. Zannoni, 'La abstenci6n radical', in HipdolitoYrigoyen.Puebloy Gobierno,vol. I, pp. 9, 62.


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Elections in Buenos Aires, 1890-1898 483failure of the UCR during this period, and one of the reasons for itsimmediate decline, was its ineffectiveness in mobilising the urbanpopulation.54 Finally, the UCR has traditionally been seen as the party thatwas formed to represent the country's new social forces. There is littleagreement however, on who constituted these social forces, and historianshave suggested a wide diversity of social groups, ranging from the creolesor the 'popular' sectors, to a middle/upper-class coalition.55 In spite ofthese disagreements, it has traditionally been argued that class played animportant role in the organisation of the party and that its socialcomposition was an important factor differentiating it from the 'elitist'PAN.

A number of factors should be taken into account when analysing theperformance of the Radical Party. First, the UCR was a new politicalparty. It began its electoral career with the UCN in I891 and continued onits own from the elections of I892 onwards. Secondly, the electoral systemdiscriminated against minority parties as it did not allow for proportionalrepresentation. Thirdly, the UCR was the party of opposition andtherefore could not count on the traditional resources generally availableto a party in government - such as the vote of public employees. Finally,as was pointed out, the total electorate did not increase with the rise inparty competition during the decade and, therefore, the UCR needed towin a part of the existing active electorate of Buenos Aires.If we consider the electoral performance of the Radical Party, theresults of Figure 2 show that the UCR was electorally rather successful. Infact, it represented such a threat that in order to defeat the UCR, the PANand the UCN were forced to form electoral coalitions against theRadicals.56 These electoral alliances were partly fostered by an electoralsystem that discriminated against minority parties and the formation of amulti-party system.57 However, the tight margins of votes between thePAN/UCN and the Radicals shown in Table 4 imply that these electoralcoalitions were absolutely necessary for the PAN and the UCN to defeat54 Rock, Politics in Argentina, pp. 44, 46.55 See for example Romero, A History, pp. 205- 1; T. F. McGann, Argentina, the UnitedStates and the Inter-AmericanSystem, 1880-i9p4 (Cambridge, Mass., I957), pp. 49-53;Ezequiel Gallo and Silvia Sigal, 'La formaci6n de los partidos politicos contem-poraneos: La UCR (i890-19I6)', in T. Di Tella et al., Argentina, sociedadde masas(Buenos Aires, 1966), pp. I49-70; P. Snow, Argentine Radicalism(Iowa, 1964), pp. 6,I4; Rock, Politics in Argentina, pp. 3-4, 26-8; Luis Alberto Romero 'El surgimiento

y la llegada al poder', in L. A. Romero et al., El radicalismo Buenos Aires, 1969), pp.161-17.56 The UCN and the PAN formed electoral coalitions for the two elections of i892, andthe elections of i896 and i898.57 According to Duverger, in a multi-party regime, simple-majority single-ballot systemsencourage strong alliances. Duverger, Political Parties, pp. 325-6.


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484 Paula AlonsoTable 5. Pearson's correlation of professional groups and votes of the RadicalParty in I6 wards, I892-8

1892 1894 1895 1896 1898Pi -o.36 -o.36 -0.76 -0.34 -0.40P2 0.38 0.3I o.56 o.i6 0.40P3 0.36 0.37 0.73 0.29 0.32

the UCR. When the PAN and the UCN failed to form electoral coalitions,as in I894, they lost.The Radicals demonstrated that they were well equipped to compete inelections. The fact that they triumphed only in the elections of I894should not overshadow the party's performance throughout the decade,as this was partly the result of the electoral system. Considering all wardscontested throughout the decade, the Radicals won in 43 out of a total of63 electoral districts contested between I892 and i896.58 It should also benoted that, although the UCR lost to the UCN in 1895, the UCN won theelection by resorting to fraud in two electoral districts. In the othercontested wards, the UCR comfortably defeated the UCN.59The electoral performance of the UCR dramatically declined in I898.From the first months of 1896 until the death of Alem in July that year,the party suffered from divisions in its ranks. More significant splits tookplace in mid 1897 and, finally, only a small faction led by Bernardo deIrigoyen participated in the presidential elections of I898.What was the social basis of support for the UCR in the city of BuenosAires? Table 5 shows the correlation between the electoral results of theUCR and the professional groups taken from the Electoral Register ofi896.60The correlations show that the UCR consistently failed to gain supportfrom the lower sectors of society. Its strength derived from the liberal,better-paid professions of group 3 (which includes lawyers, notaries,doctors, professors, engineers, accountants, military men) and the non-58 Again, i898 has been excluded, as only a faction of the party contested the elections;the Radicals were defeated in all electoral districts. But even if we take into account the

election of I898, the UCR won in 43 out of the 79 wards contested since I892.59 In I895 the UCN concentrated the party's campaign on only two wards and, by the useof extensive fraud, won the elections, given that the electoral system awardedrepresentation to the party that won most votes. The event was an exception in the89os and it was widely condemned by the press and by Congressmen of all parties. SeeLa Prensa, 5 March 1895.60 It should be noted that even though the electoral data cover an eight-year period wecan only count on the Electoral Register of I896. While ideally we should use moreElectoral Registers of the period, this information is not available. We can only assumethat the composition of the electorate did not change throughout the period; there isno obvious reason to think that it did.


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Elections in Buenos Aires, 1890-I898 485Table 6. Pearson's correlationof houseprices and electoral results of theRadical Party in I6 wards, I89o-8

1892 I894 I895 i896 18980.27 0.20 0.54 0?-5 0.51

manual professions of group 2 (brokers, administrators, industrialists,commission agents, insurance brokers).61 There appears to be no strongdistinction in support for the UCR between groups 2 and 3. A similar,although less pronounced, pattern can be found in the correlation of votesfor the UCR and house prices (Table 6). The evidence suggests that theRadicals did better in wards with higher house prices.Cornblit found similar results in the elections of 1894 in the Provinceof Buenos Aires where the Radicals received stronger support in the mostprosperous areasof the Province, while the PAN derived its strength fromthe more backward regions.62 Why this was so is a question difficult toanswer as we cannot rely on opinion polls, so frequently employed toanalyse elections in the twentieth century.It can be assumed that in the poorest sectors of the population, therewas more temptation to sell votes and that a machine-type of politics hadmore chance of success among the lower classes and the poorerneighbourhoods. It can also be assumed that the PAN, being the party ingovernment, could use government resources and therefore had greateropportunity for electoral engineering in the poorer wards. In spite of theefforts of some historians to portray the UCR as a popular party, theRadicals did not appeal directly to the support of the lower classes, norindeed to any particular sector of the population. Their rhetoric wasdirected to 'the whole of the well-intentioned population of ourcountry'.63 It can be argued that the tenets of the UCR had little appealto the lower sectors of the population. For the small entrepreneur and themanual worker, revolution meant financial instability and bad business.The ideas of a civic duty to resist an illegitimate government, and of areturn to the 'glorious past' were expensive notions if they brought withthem political and economic instability. Discourses on the death of thecountry's political life and attacks on government corruption were61 For the complete list of professions included in these categories see Szuchman andSofer, 'The State of Social Stratification', Appendix B (high professional and low

professional categories).62 Oscar Cornblit, 'La opci6n conservadora en la Republica Argentina', DesarrolloEcondmico,vol. 14, no. 56 (1975), pp. 619-21. With data for 1912 and I916, and usinga 'modernisation' index which included literacy, urbanisation and foreign population,Gallo and Sigal found positive correlations between 'modernisation' and electoral

support for the UCR. These correlations were done for each province. Gallo and Sigal,'La formaci6n', pp. I53-4. 63 El Argentino, 24 Oct. I89.


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486 Paula Alonsoprobably more appealing to those in the liberal professions. Partycompetition, decentralisation of power, and morality of the publicadministration were values they could relate to and afford to struggle for,even at the financial cost of some political turmoil.However, we should not accept easy conclusions regarding the socio-economic basis of the political parties' electoral support in the 89os. Thecorrelations between the UCR and the professional groups, althoughconstant throughout the period, oscillate between o.3o and 0.40 andtherefore are not sufficiently strong to enable us to claim that social statuswas a crucial factor in determining the political preferences of the portenovoters. Only in the 9 os and 1920o did the relationship between class andparty preference become more pronounced.64 Although historians andpolitical scientists have argued that socio-economic factors were importantto the emergence of the UCR in the 89os, the formation of the party canbe more realistically explained by looking at other factors such as politicalcircumstance and ideological clashes.65ConclusionAs we have seen, the standard accounts of Argentina's politicaldevelopment reduce nineteenth-century electoral politics to a matter ofelite repression, a system that ended in 1912 with the expansion of thepractice of voting from the upper class to the middle and working classes.New accounts, on the other hand, describe nineteenth-century elections asan inter-factional game where the socially marginal men were tools in thehands of party factions. This political system came to an end in I 9I2 whenthe law obliged the previously indifferent upper and middle classes to goto the polls.However, a closer inspection of the electoral results of the i89os inBuenos Aires and of the portenovoters challenges both these arguments.Elections were highly competitive, and involved all the sectors of thepopulation. Even new political parties, such as the UCR, had a goodchance of success. There is some incipient evidence of correlation betweenparty preference and social status of a kind similar to the more markedpatterns identifiable in the i9Ios and 9o20S.This is not to say that elections in the I89os closely resembled thoseafter I912. In the I89os the vote was not secret, voters were at timesintimidated and violence and fraud were a common part of the votingprocess.66 However, these features of the nineteenth-century elections did64 See Walter, 'Elections', pp. 6I0-24.65 This argument is further expanded in Alonso, 'The Origins'.66 It should be noted, however, that some of these features did not disappear overnightfrom the post-I9I2 electoral practices.


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Elections in BuenosAires, I890-1898 487not rule out party competition and the participation of all sectors of thepopulation.These new findings have important implications for the received viewson the significance of i912 in the country's political development. Partycompetition was not created 'overnight' by the reform, as has beenargued.67It is true that the UCR did not again participate in elections untilthe passing of the law, but in the city of Buenos Aires other oppositionparties did, and did so successfully.68 In terms of final election results andthe degree of party competition, the party performances of the I89os weresimilar to those following the electoral reform. As regards the socio-economic characteristics of the electorate, there seems to be no significantdifference between the electorate of the I89os and that of the I9Ios, onlya slight increase in the participation of the middle sector and a decrease inthat of the working and upper classes.69There is always a danger in extrapolating from the i89os to 1912 andfurther work is needed on the first decades of the twentieth century toenable one to arrive at stronger conclusions on the transition to a moderndemocratic system. However, taking into account the new evidence of thei89os, the reform of 1912 seems to have been a significant step inexpanding the number of voters, given that voting became compulsory.70But this was not primarily a matter of including previously neglectedsocial sectors into the electorate. It was not the case that in I9I2 the elite'allowed' the participation of the middle and working classes for the firsttime or that the middle and upper classes were now forced to abandontheir previous indifference. The features of the 89os electoral practices inBuenos Aires - well-organised political parties contesting competitiveelections involving all sectors of the population with some evidence ofchoice in their voting preferences - point to a more gradual process ofpolitical development in Buenos Aires.67 Remmer, Party Competition,pp. 221-2.68 For the performance of the Socialist Party see R. J. Walter, The Socialist Party ofArgentina, I890-1930 (Austin, Texas, 1977), pp. 65-6; Jeremy Adelman, 'Socialism andDemocracy in Argentina in the Age of the Second International', Hispanic AmericanHistorical Review,vol. 72, no. 2 (May 1992), pp. 22I-33.69 Walter, 'Elections', pp. 6o5-8.70 For the increased turn-out after 1912 see Cant6n, Elecciones,pp. 43-58.

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