1946 Argentina General Election (No Coup)

The 1946 Argentine General Elections were held on October 20, 1946. It marked the Radical Civic Union's return to power after its defeat in 1940, and plunged the outgoing ruling party, the National Democrats, into an even deeper crisis of purpose than the death of its founder had when Roca Jr. passed away in late 1942. Having won the presidency on the back of his personal credibility and the popularity of his illustrious last name, the loss of Roca as a unifying figure unleashed unprecedented infighting in the conservative party, especially as it dealt with his decision to join Brazil in declaring war on the Axis and the disappointment that his term in office would be finished by a latecomer to the party like the antipersonalist radical Hortensio Quijano.

To make matters worse for the PDN, the Radicals - who had hit a nadir in 1942, as Roca lead his party to a resounding legislative triumph and consigned the UCR to a third consecutive defeat for the first time in its history - had recovered their sense of purpose in opposition to Quijano's presidency, which hewed to close to Radical reformism for his party's leaders while still skewing heavily conservative for his one-time coreligionists. The Radical party had embarked on a soul-searching journey even before Roca's death, culminating in the party's historic 1943 National Convention held in Paraná.

The party program that emerged from that Convention, dubbed the Paraná Manifesto, sought to recover the party's roots as a party that challenged the institutional status quo and spearheaded sweeping reforms: it included not just a demand for women's suffrage - which, to their credit, would likewise be endorsed in the PDN's platform for the 1946 election - but went further still, proposing the abolition of the electoral college for the president as well as for the senate in addition to the implementation of electoral reform and proportional representation. The bold program struck a chord in the electorate, especially as the nation was swept up in the ideological fervor whipped up by World War 2, and the party's emphatic win at the 1944 legislative elections were a harbinger of things to come.

When the party came together to announce its presidential ticket, it settled on two faces of the party's ascendant reformist wing: Amadeo Sabattini of Córdoba and Mario Campero of Tucumán, both men who had started their career in the party under Yrigoyen's leadership and had risen from the city council to the provincial government of their respective provinces in the years since. The NDP for its part would ultimately shed its last vestiges of antipersonalist radical roots, likewise selecting two governors for its ticket as it fell to Robustiano Patrón Costas of Salta and Reynaldo Pastor of Buenos Aires to square off against the UCR. The choice of Patrón Costas and Pastor however accentuated one of the internal divides of the party, namely their support for Roca's decision to join the Allies, and the party bled votes to the far-right as a result - with Pedro Pablo Ramirez's second candidacy picking up twice as many votes as his 1940 run.

Although the UCR picked up swing voters from the PDN, it likewise bled votes to an insurgent party on its flank, but for different reasons: while the PDN saw more hardline nationalists abandon the party over its stance on WW2, the UCR lost votes on its left as the Popular Front - now lead by the Socialist Party and bolstered significantly by a much stronger labor movement behind it - also improved on its 1940 tally and continued to eat away at the Radical majority in the Federal Capital as well as Santa Fe (where it beat the National Democrats for 2nd place and recouped the 3 seats the Progressive Democrats had lost 6 years earlier).

Just as the world emerged from the Second World War profoundly transformed by the experience, Argentina likewise took huge strides under Sabattini's presidency as the UCR once more lead the country down the path of institutional reform. But the Democrats' poor performance left a bitter taste in the mouth of its leaders, and soon the anglophilic tendencies of the conservative establishment was placed on a collision course with the rightward trend of its voters and up and coming leaders. The Cold War would also lead to new challenges for Argentine democracy, especially as European fascism began to be rehabilitated abroad and at home and as the once-marginal Communist Party of Argentina found a sponsor with seemingly bottomless pockets. The center still held in 1946, but the cracks were showing at the extremes...