Arturo Araujo

Arturo Araujo

Arturo Araujo (* 1878 in Santa Tecla , † December 1, 1967 in San Salvador ) was President of El Salvador . He took office on March 1, 1931, and was overthrown in a coup on December 2, 1931 .

biography

Arturo Araujo was a son of Enriqueta Fajardo de Araujo and Dr. Eugenio Araujo, who was Finance Minister in General Tomás Regalado's cabinet . He belonged to the latifundist oligarchy . His first wife came from the United States and he had a daughter with her. His second wife was Rosa Amelia Guzmán de Araujo, with her he had a son. Araujo studied history in Great Britain , where he became a Labor Party supporter . In 1917 after the earthquake , in the reign of Carlos Meléndez , he was involved in the reconstruction of Armenia in western El Salvador. During the presidential election campaign in 1930 he founded the Partido Laborista de El Salvador and could count on the support of the teacher and writer Alberto Masferrer . He was elected President of El Salvador in an exceptionally correct election. He took office on March 1, 1931. El Salvador was still suffering economically from the consequences of the Great Depression of 1929. The coffee price had fallen by 45% within six months, which was also expressed in a balance of payments deficit . The coffee bourgeoisie paid no taxes and Araujo's executive could not pay salaries or wages . The farm workers called for their wages and better living conditions, which were often withheld from them by the stately latifundists, with strikes, whereupon the Guardia Nacional was often appointed to the haciendas.

There the Guardias, who were waiting for their wages themselves, got something to eat and plenty to drink from the landowners, for which the Guardias thanked in part with the murder of the protesting farm workers. A state of emergency has been declared . The policy of unpaid wages and the lack of pay made Araujo unpopular with civil servants and the military . The repression by the Guardia and government troops under the command of Defense Minister Maximiliano Hernández Martínez made him unpopular with farm workers. The coffee bourgeoisie couldn't do anything with Labor, but supported Hernández Martínez in the coup against Araujo in early December 1931.

After Araujo had fled to Guatemala, the coup leader Maximiliano Hernández Martínez appeared and claimed that his fascist party, the Partido Pro-Patria (PPP), had made him deputy president in the elections, who, according to the constitution, would take over the president's business in the absence of the president have.

predecessor	Office	successor
Pío Romero Bosque	President of El Salvador 1931	Maximiliano Hernández Martínez