Los conservadores bonaerenses y la reforma de la ley electoral provincial (1910-1913)

Abstract

This article analyzes the political conflicts and tensions arising from the promulgation of the 1913 Buenos Aires electoral law reform. The main hypothesis supports that the democratic policy fostered during Roque Sáenz Peña’s presidency redefined the guidelines of the internal struggle within the ruling Conservative Party of the Buenos Aires Province, thus inducing its different fractions to link their private interests to the new institutional context. As a result, far from offering a Block response or announcing themselves in favour of, or against,democratization, Buenos Aires conservatives generated between 1910 and 1913 a series of ‘reforming’ initiatives, which reflected their own internal divisions. In this sense, the direction of the electoral law issued in 1913 implied not only a response to the reforming demands of the era, but also a commitment arising from the solution to the tension built up in the preceding years.