The Radical Civic Union (, 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.
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.
It was only in 1958 that a faction of the party allied with banned Peronists (in the Intransigent Radical Civic Union founded in 1956, splitting from what then called itself the People's Radical Civil Union) came back to power, led by Arturo Frondizi. The growing tolerance of Frondizi towards his Peronist allies provoked unrest in the army, which ousted the president in March 1962.
After a brief military government, presidential elections took place in 1963 with the Peronist Party banned (as in 1958). The outcome saw the candidate of the People's Radical Civic Union (the other party's faction) Arturo Illia coming first but with only 25% of the votes (approximately 19% of the votes were blank ballots returned by Peronists owing to their party being banned). Although Argentina experienced during Illia's presidency one of the most successful periods of history in terms of economic performance, the president was ousted by the army in June 1966. Illia's peaceful and ordered style of governing — sometimes considered too "slow" and "boring" - was heavily criticized at the time.
During the 1970s, Peronist government (1973–1976), the UCR was the second-most supported party, but this didn't actually grant the party the role of being the political opposition. In fact, the Peronist government's most important criticisms came from the same Peronist Party (now called Justicialist Party). The UCR's leader in those times, Ricardo Balbín, saluted Peron's coffin (Perón had died on July 1, 1974, during his third mandate as president) with the famous sentence "This old adversary salutes a great friend", thus marking the end of the Peronist-radical rivalry that had marked the pace of the Argentine political scene until then. The growing fight between left-wing and right-wing Peronists took the country into chaos and many UCR members were targeted by both factions. The subsequent coup in 1976 ended Peronist rule.
During the military regime, many members of the UCR were "disappeared", as were members of other parties.
Between 1983 and 1989, its leader, Raúl Ricardo Alfonsín, was the first democratically elected president after the military dictatorship headed by generals such as Jorge Videla, Leopoldo Galtieri and Reynaldo Bignone. Alfonsín was succeeded by Carlos Saúl Menem of the Peronist Justicialist Party (PJ).
The election of Mr. Alfonsin, who campaigned hard for clean government and civil rights, represented a fundamental change toward genuine democracy in Argentina.
In 1997, the UCR participated in elections in coalition with Front for a Country in Solidarity (FREPASO), itself an alliance of many smaller parties.
This strategy brought Fernando de la Rúa to the presidency in the 1999 elections. During major riots triggered by economic reforms implemented by the UCR government (with the advice of the International Monetary Fund), President de la Rúa resigned and fled the country to prevent further turmoil. After three consecutive acting presidents assumed and resigned their duties in the following weeks, Eduardo Duhalde of the PJ took office until new elections could be held.
After the 2001 legislative elections, the party lost and became the second-largest party in the federal Chamber of Deputies, winning 71 of 257 seats. It campaigned in an alliance with the smaller, more leftist FREPASO.
The party has subsequently declined markedly and its candidate for president in 2003, Leopoldo Moreau, gained just 2.34% of the vote, beaten by three Peronists and more seriously, by two former radicals, Ricardo López Murphy of Recrear and Elisa Carrió of ARI, who have leached members, support and profile from the UCR. Since Nestor Kirchner's led peronist PJ switched into political left, the UCR start to alliance with center-right anti-peronists.
In the 2005 legislative elections, the UCR was reduced to 35 deputies and 13 senators, but remains the second force in Argentine politics.
Ahead of the 2007 election, the remaining Radicals divided, between those who wanted to find an internal candidate and those who wanted to back a candidate from another movement, mostly former economy minister Roberto Lavagna, supported by former president Raúl Alfonsín.
In May 2005, the National Committee of the UCR, then led by Ángel Rozas, intervened (suspended of authorities of) the Provincial Committee of the UCR in Tierra del Fuego Province after Radical governor Jorge Colazo spoke in favour of Kirchner's reelection. The intervention was rejected by the Provincial Committee.
A party convention held in Rosario in August 2006 officially rejected the possibility of alliances with Kirchner's faction of Justicialism and granted former Party President Roberto Iglesias the permission to negotiate with other political forces. This led to several months of talks with Lavagna.La Capital, 27 August 2006. Los radicales se marcharon de Rosario con el corazón partido.
The continued dissidence of the Radicales K prompted the intervention of the UCR Provincial Committee of Mendoza on 1 November 2006, due to the public support of President Kirchner by Mendoza's governor, the Radical Julio Cobos. The measure was short-lived, as the Mendoza Province Electoral Justice overturned it three days later. Deputy and UCR National Committee Secretary General Margarita Stolbizer stated that the party is virtually "broken due to the stance of the leaders who support the alliance [with Kirchner]".Clarín, 1 November 2006. La UCR intervino el partido en Mendoza por "desacato".Página/12, 5 November 2006. Los radicales K tienen hoy su congreso propio.
Roberto Iglesias eventually resigned the presidency of the party in November 2006 due to differences with Lavagna, having reached the conclusion that an alliance with him would be a mistake, and joined Stolbizer's camp, maintaining that the party should look for its own candidate (the so-called Radicales R).Clarín, 14 November 2006. Se agrandan las divisiones internas en la UCR: renunció el titular del partido. On 1 December 2006 the National Committee appointed Jujuy Province Senator Gerardo Morales as its new president. Morales stated that he wanted to follow the mandate of the Rosario convention (that is, looking for a possible alliance with Roberto Lavagna).Clarín, 1 December 2006. Morales quedó al frente de la UCR y crecen las posibilidades de un acercamiento a Lavagna.
Morales went on to become Lavagna's running mate in the presidential election of October 2007, coming third. Although this campaign represented the mainstream of the national UCR leadership, substantial elements backed other candidates, notably the Radicales K. Cobos was elected vice president as the running mate of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner through the Plural Consensus alliance, and several Radicals were elected to Congress as part of the Kirchners' Front for Victory faction. The official UCR ranks in Congress were reduced to 30 in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies and 10 in the Argentine Senate.
In recent years, the UCR has been riven by an internal dispute between those who oppose and those who support the left-wing policies of Peronist President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and her husband and predecessor Néstor Kirchner. However, most Radicales K support for the Kirchners ended by mid 2008, when Vice President Julio Cobos opposed the Government bill on agricultural export taxes. He later rejoined UCR, becoming a prominent figure in the opposition, despite being still the Vice President.
The UCR joined the Civic and Social Agreement to run for the 2009 elections. The loose coalition obtained 29% of the national votes and came a close second to the Front for Victory and allies national outcomes. The Party's reorganization, as well as the 2009 elections, resulted in a gain of party representatives in the National Congress.