Nicolás de Piérola

José Nicolás Baltasar "El Califa" Fernández de Piérola y Villena (born January 5, 1839 in Arequipa , Peru , † June 23, 1913 in Lima ) was a Peruvian politician and two-time President of Peru .

Life

Nicolás de Piérola was the eldest son of the lawyer, writer, museum director and politician Nicolás Fernández de Piérola y Flores . He attended the renowned Collegio Seminario de Santo Toribio in Lima and then studied law in Lima. In 1860 he married Jesusa de Iturbide, the granddaughter of Mexican Emperor Augustin I. In the same year he was admitted as a lawyer . However, he did not take up legal activity afterwards, but founded the magazine El Progreso Catolico before he became editor of the daily El Tiempo in 1864 , in which he supported the government of President Juan Antonio Pezet .

Nicolás de Piérola began his political career in January 1869 as Minister of Finance in the government of José Balta and held this office until 1871.

In 1872 he was the leader of a rebellion in Moquegua , which, however , was suppressed by the commander of the Zepita battalion , Andrés Avelino Cáceres , who was subsequently promoted to colonel .

In May 1877 he made an unsuccessful attempted coup against President Mariano Ignacio Prado , in the course of which it came on May 6, 1877 to the capture of the ironclad Huáscar by a group of putschists under the leadership of Corvette Captain Manuel María Carrasco.

On December 23, 1879, he succeeded Prado as president for the first time and held this office until March 12, 1881. The later interim president Miguel Iglesias became war minister in his government . The instability caused by his assumption of office, however, made the situation of the armed forces allied against the Chileans more difficult in the saltpeter war that had broken out a few months earlier . During the tenure of President Remigio Morales Bermúdez , the Democratic Party led by de Piérola was opposed with repressive measures.

After First Vice-President Pedro Alejandrino del Solar dissolved the two chambers of Congress in April 1894 and called new elections, an alliance of civilistas and the Democratic Party, including de Piérola, now in exile , called for democratic and direct elections. When the Second Vice President Justiniano Borgoño rejected this and also deposed numerous local administrations, the opposition candidates decided against taking part in the ballot, which was then largely contested by the members of the Partido Constitucional .

De Piérola with his supporters entering Lima in 1895

The office of President de Piérola exercised again from September 8, 1895 to September 8, 1899 after he won the presidential elections organized by Manuel Candamo . Vice-President during his term in office was Guillermo Billinghurst , who was involved in the mediation efforts over the border conflicts with Chile on his behalf. His presidency was borne by the Partido Civil , in which he had started his political career. He then handed over the presidency to Eduardo López de Romaña , who won the presidential election with 97 percent of the votes cast.

After the death of Manuel Candamo and the interim presidency of Serapio Calderón , he ran in 1904 as a candidate for the Democratic Party in the new elections called by Calderón. The Partido Civil nominated José Pardo y Barreda as a candidate, the son of the former President Manuel Pardo , who was mainly supported by the so-called " Young Turks " in his party. De Piérola withdrew his candidacy a week before the election date, citing "lack of guarantees".

Even after leaving the presidency, de Piérola had great influence within the Democratic Party. On May 29, 1909, a group of supporters of his Democratic Party managed to penetrate the government palace and demand the resignation of President Augusto B. Leguía y Salcedo . Piérola's brother and sons were among the intruders. Since Leguía refused to resign, the group kidnapped him and took him to the Simón Bolívar monument in Lima . There, too, he did not give in to the demands and the police had to use force to rescue the president; more than 100 people died in the fight.

Web links

Commons : Nicolás de Piérola - Collection of images, videos and audio files

personal data
SURNAME	Piérola, Nicolás de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Piérola Villena, Jose Nicolás Baltasar Fernández de (full name); El Califa (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Peruvian politician and two-time president
DATE OF BIRTH	January 5, 1839
PLACE OF BIRTH	Arequipa , Peru
DATE OF DEATH	June 23, 1913
Place of death	Lima