Politics, Parties, and Elections in Argentina’s Province of Buenos Aires, 1912-42
HROUGHOUT Argentina's modern history the province of Buenos Aires has held the key to political control of the nation. In the twentieth century, and particularly after electoral reform in 1912, any party that hoped to capture the republic's presidency and dominate the national Congress viewed electoral victories in Buenos Aires as vital to success. The reasons are easy to discern; Argentina's largest, wealthiest, and most populous state, Buenos Aires has provided between 25 and 35 percent of all the republic's voters and a like proportion of presidential electors and national congressmen. Control of Buenos Aires, then, along with support in a few other districts, has virtually assured the presidential election of those candidates whose party held sway there. In only one instance in the twentieth century (1916) has an Argentine captured the nation's presidency without also capturing Buenos Aires. In 1946 Juan Per6n won the Argentine presidency, carrying the province of Buenos Aires by a comfortable margin and doing especially well in the working-class suburbs that surround the city of Buenos Aires.' After 1946 the province remained one of the major Peronist strongholds. The election of 1946 has been the object of considerable scholarly analysis