Arturo Umberto Illia

Arturo Illia during his presidency

Arturo Umberto Illia (born August 4, 1900 in Pergamino , † January 18, 1983 in Córdoba ) was an Argentine physician and politician ( Unión Cívica Radical , UCR). He was elected President of Argentina in a democratic election in July 1963 and succeeded José María Guido on October 12, 1963 . On June 28, 1966, 15 months before the end of his four-year term in office, he was ousted by military coups.

Life

Illia spent his childhood in Pergamino, but completed secondary school (secundaria) in Buenos Aires . From 1918 he studied medicine at the Universidad de Buenos Aires in the same city . He obtained his degree in 1927 and moved to the city of Cruz del Eje ( Cordoba Province ) in 1929 as a country doctor supported by President Hipólito Yrigoyen . He worked there with short interruptions until his presidency in 1963. He owes his commitment as a doctor in this city to the nickname Apostle of the Poor , which he received from the local population. In 1939 he married Silvia Elena Martorell, with whom he had three children.

After his presidency he moved in 1966 to the city of Martínez , a suburb of Buenos Aires in the Partido San Isidro , where he was politically active in the UCR until his death.

Political career

In 1918 Illia joined the UCR, influenced by his father and brother, who was also a member of this party. In 1929 he moved to Cruz del Eje , where he became intensively politically active. In 1935 he was elected to the Senate of the Province of Cordoba . Between 1940 and 1943 he held the post of Lieutenant Governor of Córdoba under Santiago del Castillo. Under the presidency of Juan Perón he was from 1948 to 1952 a member of the UCR in the Argentine lower house .

In the aftermath of Perón's fall (September 1955), a period of extreme political instability with numerous changes of government, the UCR split. Illia joined the left wing, the Unión Cívica Radical del Pueblo , and was elected a presidential candidate by this group in 1963. He won the election in front of the right wing of the UCR (Unión Cívica Radical Intransigente) with 51.3% of the valid votes.

Presidency

Illia took office on October 12, 1963. His reign is best known for his numerous attempts to re-establish the rule of law , which has been restricted several times since 1930 .

Measures and policy lines

His first measure was the lifting of some party bans decreed after 1955, which mainly affected the Peronist Party (Partido Justicialista; PJ), but also the Communist Party. This was accompanied by a ban on racial discrimination.

In 1963 Illia also canceled the contracts between the state oil company YPF and private companies that had been commissioned with the exploitation of the deposits by his last democratically elected predecessor Arturo Frondizi . This activity returned to YPF after his decree.

On June 15, 1964, Illia introduced a statutory minimum wage, the law is still in force today. It was accompanied by the Ley de Abastecimiento , a law that allows the control of the prices of the canasta familiar shopping basket , which in Argentina contains essential goods.

With regard to education policy, Illia introduced a literacy plan in 1964 to reduce the then illiteracy rate of 10%. He increased government spending on education from 12% (1964) to 23%.

Illia's most controversial measure at the time was the so-called drug law (Ley de medicamentos) of 1964. It subjected the pharmaceutical industry to strong state control and aimed above all at stabilizing prices and better control of ingredients. A study had previously shown that in many cases the prices demanded by the industry were 1000% above the production costs and that the ingredients were often incorrectly declared. Since this law affected the interests of numerous important corporations, it is believed that it had a strong influence on the formation of a front of conservative opponents of Illias and ultimately contributed to his overthrow.

When Illias took office, Argentina's economy was in recession. The Illia government relied on the stabilization of the state sector and pursued an austerity course with the aim of reducing the national debt. The measures were very successful: the growth of the gross domestic product was 10.3% in 1964 and 9.1% in 1965, the external debt fell from 3.4 billion to 2.6 billion US dollars and unemployment fell from 8.8% ( 1963) to 5.2% (1966).

Decline and fall

In the parliamentary elections in 1965, in which half of the seats in the federal parliament were renewed, the Peronist Party (PJ), which was allowed to vote in national elections for the first time since 1955, won by a clear lead over Illias UCRP. This PJ victory led to renewed unrest in the Argentine military and the idea of ​​a coup against Illia. The government was further weakened by numerous anti-government tendencies in some of the mass media controlled by conservative groups. In them Illia was referred to as slow and weak and nicknamed tortuga ( turtle ).

On June 28, 1966, coup d'état armed police forced Illia to resign. The people received the news indifferently because the Illia government was unpopular. General Juan Carlos Onganía , the new president, initiated a conservative turnaround (" Revolución Argentina ").

literature

Books in order of appearance

• Pedro Sánchez: La presidencia de Illia . Centro editor de America Latina (CEAL), Buenos Aires 1983.
• Mario Antonio Verone: La caída de Illia . Editorial Coincidencia, Buenos Aires 1985.
• Ricardo Illía: Arturo Illia, su vida, principios y doctrina , Ediciones Corregidor, Buenos Aires 2000, ISBN 950-05-1282-3 .
• César Tcach: Arturo Illia. Un sueño breve. The rol del peronismo y de los Estados Unidos en el golpe militar de 1966 . Edhasa, Buenos Aires 2006, ISBN 950-9009-61-X .
• Rodolfo Pandolfi, Emilio Gibaja: La democracia derrotada. Arturo Illia y su epoca . Lumiere, Buenos Aires 2008, ISBN 978-987-603-052-6 .
• Arturo Illia , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 12/1983 of March 14, 1983, in the Munzinger Archive ( beginning of the article freely available)

Web links

Commons : Arturo Umberto Illia  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

predecessor	Office	successor
José María Guido	President of Argentina 1963–1966	Juan Carlos Onganía (de facto)