The Radical Civic Union (Spanish: Unión Cívica Radical, UCR) is a major political party in Argentina. It has reached the national government on ten occasions, making it one of the most historically important parties in the country. Ideologically, the party has stood for radicalism, secularism and universal suffrage. Especially during the 1970s and 1980s, it was perceived as a strong advocate for human rights. Its factions however, have been more heterogeneous, ranging from conservative liberalism to social democracy.
Founded in 1891 by Leandro N. Alem, it is the second oldest political party active in Argentina. The party's main support has long come from the middle class. On many occasions, the UCR was in opposition to Peronist governments and declared illegal during military rule. Since 1995 it has been a member of the Socialist International (an international organisation of social democrat political parties).
The UCR had different fractures, conformations, incarnations and factions, through which the party ruled the country seven times with the presidencies of Hipólito Yrigoyen (1916-1922 and 1928-1930), Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear (1922-1928), Arturo Frondizi (1958-1962), Arturo Illia (1963-1966), Raúl Alfonsín (1983-1989) and Fernando de la Rúa (1999-2001). After 2001, the party has been particularly fragmented. As the Justicialist Party led by Nestor and Cristina Kirchner moved to the left, the UCR aligned itself with anti-Peronist centre-right parties.
From 2015 to 2023, the UCR was a member of the centre-right Cambiemos / Juntos por el Cambio coalition, along with Republican Proposal and Civic Coalition ARI, and supported Mauricio Macri in the 2015 and 2019 presidential elections. For the 2023 elections, the party supported the candidacy of Patricia Bullrich. The party is not currently in any coalition since Juntos por el Cambio's dissolution in 2023.
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History
The party was a breakaway from the Civic Union, which was led by Bartolomé Mitre and Leandro Alem. The term 'radical' in the party's name referred to its demand for universal male suffrage, which was considered radical at the time, when Argentina was ruled by an exclusive oligarchy and government power was allocated behind closed doors.
The Civic Union led an attempt to force the early departure of President Miguel Juárez Celman in the Revolution of the Park (Revolución del Parque). Eventually a compromise was reached with Juárez Celman's government. Hardliners who opposed this agreement founded the current UCR, led by Alem's nephew Hipólito Yrigoyen. In 1893 and 1905, the party led further attempts to overthrow the government.
With Alem's death in 1896, the party disbanded at the turn of the century before being revived by Yrigoyen in 1903. The party pressured the conservative government to implement democratic reforms. The party refused to participate in elections until universal adult male suffrage was introduced.
With the introduction of free, fair and confidential voting in elections based on universal adult male suffrage in 1912, the Party managed to win the general elections of 1916, when Hipólito Yrigoyen became president. As well as backing more popular participation, UCR's platform included promises to tackle the country's social problems and eradicate poverty. Yrigoyen's presidency however turned out to be rather dictatorial; he refused to cooperate with the Congress and UCR in government fell short of the democratic expectations it had raised when in opposition.
The UCR remained in power during the next 14 years: Yrigoyen was succeeded by Marcelo T. de Alvear in 1922 and again by himself in 1928. The first coup in Argentina's modern history occurred on September 6, 1930, and ousted an aging Yrigoyen amid an economic crisis resulting from the United States' Great Depression.
From 1930 to 1958, the UCR was confined to be the main opposition party, either to the Conservatives and the military during the 1930s and the early 1940s or to the Peronists during the late 1940s and early 1950s.
Ideology and factions
The UCR is generally classified as a centrist, or liberal. Due to its heterogeneity, the UCR has also been described as a big tent or catch-all party and social-liberal party, but it is also occasionally classified as a social-democratic. Radicals call themselves the party of civil liberties, democracy and the Constitution. In their history, they resisted authoritarian regimes, won universal suffrage and starred in the struggle for the causes of the popular majorities.
Raúl Alfonsín thought that radicalism advocated social democracy. He wanted to form a "broad popular, democratic, reformist and national movement"; to end privilege, authoritarianism and demagoguery and consolidate an authentic social democracy in the country. He also explained that Radicals do not define themselves, as European political parties usually do, on the left–right political spectrum, as radicalism is an ethic before being an ideology. However, according to Alfonsín, Radicals felt very comfortable as "observers" of all the tendencies that make up European social democracy. Moreover, in 1995 Raúl Alfonsín brought radicalism into the world organization of center-left parties, the Socialist International. Another former leader, Angel Rozas, defined the political-ideological identity of the party as humanist and center-left. He and his faction gave a progressive look to the party.
On the conservative side of the party sat Ricardo Balbín. The party was particularly divided since the 1960s and again since the end of the 1990s. After Balbín's death, Fernando de la Rúa who gave a neoliberal and conservative tint to the party and who famously said that "we are radicals, not socialists", kept UCR conservatives active until he became president in 1999.
During the 1989 general election, Eduardo Angeloz promised a "red pencil" to cut public deficit spending and mentioned the possible privatization of state companies, which would later be carried out by his rival, the Peronist Carlos Menem.
Since de la Rúa's demise in 2001, the UCR has become more and more fragmented politically and geographically. Besides the interventions in Tierra del Fuego and Mendoza, in September 2006, the party leaders had admitted that they reviewing requests of intervention against the provincial committees of Río Negro and Santiago del Estero. In Santa Fe, the UCR had teamed up with the Socialist Party to support Socialist candidate for governor Hermes Binner, in exchange for the vice-governorship, taken by the former governor Aldo Tessio's daughter, the fiscal federal Griselda Tessio, winning the 2007 elections.
Leaders
The UCR is headed by a National Committee; its president is the de facto leader of the party. A national convention brings together representatives of the provincial parties and affiliated organisations such as Franja Morada and Radical Youth, and is itself represented on the National Committee.
Presidents of the National Committee
(1891-1896) Leandro N. Alem
(1896-1897) Bernardo de Irigoyen
(1897-1930) Hipólito Yrigoyen
(1930-1942) Marcelo T. de Alvear
(1942-1946) Gabriel A. Oddone
(1946-1948) Eduardo Laurencena
(1948-1949) Roberto J. Parry
(1949-1954) Santiago H. del Castillo
(1954-1957) Arturo Frondizi
(1971-1981) Ricardo Balbín
(1981-1983) Carlos Contín
(1983-1991) Raúl Alfonsín
(1991-1993) Mario Losada
(1993-1995) Raúl Alfonsín
(1995-1997) Rodolfo Terragno
(1997-1999) Fernando de la Rúa
(1999-2001) Raúl Alfonsín
(2001-2005) Ángel Rozas
(2005-2006) Roberto Iglesias
Splits
Antipersonalist Radical Civic Union (1924)
Radical Civic Union - Board Renewal (1945)
Intransigent Radical Civic Union (1957)
Civic Coalition ARI (2001)
Recreate for Growth (2002)
FORJA Concertation Party (2007)
Generation for a National Encounter (2007)
Focus: Yrigoyen presidency
In 1903, Hipólito Yrigoyen began to reorganize the UCR for a new revolution. Two years after he led the armed uprising known as the Revolution of 1905, which although it failed to put sufficient pressure on the official party, it was able to cause a party breakdown.
The more progressive leaders of the autonomists, such as Carlos Pellegrini and Roque Sáenz Peña, began to support that it was necessary to make institutional changes to hold back the growth of social and political conflict.
When Roque Sáenz Peña was elected president in 1910, the UCR already was not in the position to carry out new assembled uprisings, but the general belief that existed was that a revolution was imminent. Saénz Peña y Yrigoyen, who had been maintaining a personal friendship from childhood, they then had a private meeting in which they agreed to sanction a law of free suffrage. Two years later, in 1912, they approved the law of universal secret, and obligatory voting for men, known as The Sáenz Peña Law. On the other hand, it was also the first Argentinian political party to present a legal project for women to vote in 1919, that eventually did not pass given the conservative majority in Congress. Gabino Ezeiza was a great Payador, and he musically described the popular culture in favor of Yrigoyen.
The UCR put an end to their electoral political abstention, and went to the parliamentary elections, without forming electoral alliances. For the first time in Argentina, they voted in a voting booth to guarantee a secret ballot.The predictable vote, the secret vote, and democracy. Before 1912, Argentina was using an electoral system in which votes were expressed verbally, or by ticket, in public place, and in a voluntary way, called the "predictable vote", which broke the electoral system. The struggle for democracy in Argentina, not related initially as much with universal suffrage but with the secret vote, in a voting booth, which made independent the wish of the voter from all external pressures. The Sáenz Peña Law of 1912 established the secret and obligatory vote, but due to the fact that it did not recognize the right of women to vote or to be voters, it is incorrect to say that Argentina had a truly universal voting system until 1947.The UCR first won the elections to governor in Santa Fe (Manuel Menchaca), from which followed a trail of triumphs in the rest of the country.