Hipólito Yrigoyen

Juan Hipólito del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús Yrigoyen Alem (July 12 1852 – July 3 1933) was twice President of Argentina (from 1916 to 1922 and again from 1928 to 1930).

Freedom activist

Born in Buenos Aires, Irigoyen worked as a school teacher before entering politics. In 1891 he co-founded the Radical Civic Union (Unión Cívica Radical), together with his uncle, Leandro Alem. Following Alem's suicide in 1896, Hipólito Irigoyen assumed sole leadership of the Radical Civic Union. It adopted a policy of intransigency, a position of total opposition to the regime known as "The Agreement". Established by electoral fraud, this was an agreed formula among the political parties of that time for alternating in power. The Radical Civic Union took up arms in 1893 and again in 1905. Later, however, Irigoyen adopted a policy of nonviolence, pursuing instead the strategy of "revolutionary abstention", a total boycott of all polls until 1912, when President Roque Sáenz Peña was forced to agree to the passage of the Sáenz Peña Law, which established secret, universal, and compulsory male suffrage.

Related Topics:
Buenos Aires - 1891 - Radical Civic Union - Leandro Alem - Suicide - 1896 - 1893 - 1905 - Boycott - 1912 - Roque Sáenz Peña - Sáenz Peña Law - Suffrage

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~