The Meléndez–Quiñónez dynasty () was a period in El Salvador's history from 1913 to 1927 when the Salvadoran government was controlled by the Meléndez–Quiñónez political family. During this period, three of the family's members—brothers Carlos Meléndez and Jorge Meléndez and their brother-in-law Alfonso Quiñónez Molina—rotated control of the presidency between themselves.
The dynasty began in 1913 when Carlos became president after Manuel Enrique Araujo's assassination. Carlos resigned in 1914 to run in the 1915 presidential election and was briefly succeeded by Quiñónez. Carlos won the election and served until his resignation in 1918. Quiñónez again succeeded him, and Carlos' younger brother Jorge won the 1919 election. He served until 1923 when he was succeeded by Quiñónez. Quiñónez served until 1927 when he was succeeded by Pío Romero Bosque, his minister of war and a personal friend. Quiñónez intended to continue ruling El Salvador through Romero as a puppet ruler, but Romero politically broke from the Meléndez–Quiñónez dynasty. Jorge and Quiñónez attempted to overthrow Romero, but their December 1927 coup attempt failed, ending the dynasty's influence in El Salvador.
The Meléndez–Quiñónez dynasty ruled El Salvador in an authoritarian manner. It utilized fraudulent elections and political repression by the Red League paramilitary to hold onto power. Jorge and Quiñónez established the National Democratic Party (PDN) in 1918 to ensure that its allies got elected to political offices. In 1922, the Red League killed a dozen people who supported a rival in the 1923 presidential election during the Christmas Day Massacre. The dynasty benefitted economically from high coffee prices and foreign investments; meanwhile, Salvadoran workers protested and demanded more rights and improved working conditions.
Establishment
On 9 February 1913, Salvadoran president Manuel Enrique Araujo died from wounds sustained in an assassination attempt five days prior. As Vice President Onofre Durán Santillana resigned before Manuel Enrique Araujo's death, Carlos Meléndez, the president of the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador and the first presidential designate, succeeded Manuel Enrique Araujo as the provisional president. Shortly after assuming office, Carlos had Manuel Enrique Araujo's assassins executed by firing squad.
Carlos had been active in Salvadoran politics since the 1894 Revolution of the 44 that brought General Rafael Antonio Gutiérrez to power. Carlos ran for vice president in the 1895 election but lost to Prudencio Alfaro by 19,214 votes. Carlos ran for vice president again in the 1903 election, and for president in 1903 and 1907, but was unsuccessful each time. Carlos intended to be elected to the presidency in the 1915 presidential election and established the Club Melendista (a pseudo-political party) to help him win the election. The club ensured that only his allies would be elected to local offices so that they could select election officials who would guarantee Carlos' victory.
On 29 August 1914, Carlos resigned from the presidency and handed it to his brother-in-law Alfonso Quiñónez Molina, the country's first presidential designate. Carlos did this because he would have been constitutionally ineligible to run for president in the 1915 presidential election if he did not resign early. The constitution prohibited anyone who had held the office of President in the six months prior to an election from participating in it, as a way to prevent consecutive re-election. Carlos ultimately won the 1915 election and was inaugurated as President on 1 March 1915. Quiñónez became his vice president.
Rule over El Salvador
Centralization of power
Once the Meléndez–Quiñónez dynasty was in power, it sought to ensure that it would remain in power through the use of fraudulent and rigged elections that would favor the dynasty. Political scientist Michael Krennerich wrote that El Salvador's elections during the Meléndez–Quiñónez dynasty "had little political significance" outside of a small oligarchy that was allowed to participate. Furthermore, those that were allowed to participate in elections all had political positions similar to those of the dynasty. According to historians Luis Guillermo Bernal Ramírez and Ana Elia Quijano de Batres, "the entire country" ("") knew that elections were fraudulent. One contemporary election official remarked that "presidential continuance depend[ed] often enough on electoral fraud".
In mid-1918, Jorge Meléndez (Carlos' younger brother) and Quiñónez established the National Democratic Party (PND) to consolidate their political networks and allegiances. All political activity outside the party was soon outlawed. During Carlos' presidency, the Meléndez brothers portrayed their government and a break from the country's past of factionalized violence and revolutions. In a pamphlet titled Economic Orientations of President Meléndez, Jorge praised his brother's presidency as having defeated in the name of "civilized government". They presented this liberal and democratic portrayal of the government to justify their centralization of power into their government, the Club Melendista, and the PND. The PND had a paramilitary wing known as the Red League ("") that intimidated opponents with violence. Many of the Red League's members were clients of the dynasty's allies and indigenous Salvadorans that sought to use the paramilitary's training for their own political advantage.
In the lead up to the 1919 presidential election, Carlos did not designate a presidential successor, so Quiñónez and Tomás García Palomo (Carlos' minister of government and finance) ran against each other. During the December 1918 municipal elections, Quiñónez and Palomo's supporters clashed with each other at polling stations, killing around 100 people and wounding 200 more. The election resulted in Quiñónez's allies winning, virtually assuring him victory in the presidential election. On 21 December 1918, Carlos resigned as president due to illness and Quiñónez assumed the presidency, disqualifying him from participating in the election. Quiñónez considered running anyway, and Palomo subsequently dropped out of the race because he did not want to run against the incumbent president. One week before the election, Quiñónez selected Jorge to be the PND's candidate. Landowner Arturo Araujo (no relation to Manuel Enrique Araujo) of the Salvadoran Laborist Party also announced his own campaign. In response, Jorge and Quiñónez ordered Supreme Court Chief Justice Pío Romero Bosque to run and they planned to have him receive more votes than Arturo Araujo to humiliate him. The election resulted in Jorge receiving 97 percent of the vote, Romero receiving 2 percent, and Arturo Araujo receiving 1 percent.
Violence and rebellions
Jorge was inaugurated as president of El Salvador on 1 March 1919. Carlos died on 8 October 1919 in New York City, United States due to complications from the same illness that had led to his resignation. In 1920, Arturo Araujo attempted to seize power by invading El Salvador from Honduras with an army of 300 to 1,000 militiamen, but Jorge's government repelled the invasion. During Jorge's presidency, he and Quiñónez expanded the PND's influence, and many of the party's local officials labeled independent politicians and non-PND members as enemies. The government also used the military to ensure that PND candidates won local elections and prevent factionalism.
Government–military relations began to deteriorate during Jorge's presidency, especially as the government cut army wages in 1919 due to budget deficits. The military was also dissatisfied with the treatment of the National Guard (a gendarmerie) which it saw as supplanting it in importance. In February 1922, 63 cadets of the Polytechnic School attempted a coup d'état against Jorge's government and killed around 50 loyalist soldiers. The coup failed and Jorge closed the school for four years. In May 1922, 200 soldiers of the 6th Infantry Brigade in San Salvador took control of their barracks and declared Jorge to be deposed. The rebelling soldiers failed to capture the El Zapote barracks; 40 were captured or killed while the remaining soldiers fled the country.
Quiñónez was the PND's candidate in the 1923 presidential election. Miguel Tomás Molina, Jorge's former minister of government and one of Quiñónez's cousins, challenged Quiñónez's presidential bid. Jorge implemented a state of emergency that prevented Molina from holding political rallies to support his campaign. Despite the ban on rallies, Molina held a rally on 25 December 1922 in downtown San Salvador. The Red League, National Guard, National Police, and army shot at people attending the rally, killing around a dozen people and injuring around a hundred. Molina sought refuge in the Spanish embassy after the Christmas Day Massacre, and on election day, Quiñónez won unanimously with 178,000 votes. Romero was elected as his vice president, and they both assumed office on 1 March 1923. Quiñónez disbanded the Red League in 1923 after assuming the presidency because it began to engage in politics outside of his orders.
Fall of the dynasty
Conflict with Romero
As the 1927 presidential election approached, Quiñónez nominated Romero as his presidential successor. Romero agreed to retain certain political appointments made by Quiñónez as a precondition for Quiñónez picking him as the next president. Romero won the election unanimously and assumed office on 1 March 1927. Quiñónez expected to use Romero as a puppet ruler, and contemporary American diplomats such as Cornelius Van Hemert Engert and Jefferson Caffery also believed that Quiñónez would continue to rule El Salvador behind the scenes. In 1927, the Legislative Assembly appointed Quiñónez as the first presidential designee, second in line to the presidency after Vice President Gustavo Vides.
In April 1927, Romero backtracked on his agreement with Quiñónez to maintain existing political appointments by forcing two of his sub-secretaries to resign, which led to Quiñónez accusing him of failing to uphold his political promises. Engert believed that the forced resignations were part of a campaign by Romero to "do away with the Quinonez influence". That same month, Romero also lifted press censorship and the ban on public demonstrations and, soon after, University of El Salvador students protested in San Salvador against Quiñónez's appointment as the first presidential designate, even protesting in front of his home demanding his resignation. In June 1927, as Quiñónez's and Romero's supporters in the Legislative Assembly debated the constitutionality of Quiñónez's appointment, Quiñónez resigned and left with his family for exile in France.
1927 pro-dynasty coup attempt
Jorge and Quiñónez plotted a coup to overthrow Romero's government to preserve the dynasty's influence in Salvadoran politics. Jorge was the coup's primary organizer and he recruited several of his and Quiñónez's allies to carry it out. Among those recruited to the plot were Federico Guillermo Kreitz (chief of police under the Meléndez–Quiñónez dynasty), Colonel Juan Enrique Aberle (the incumbent chief of the army's machine shop), and Major Manuel Alfaro Noguera (the incumbent deputy chief of police). Jorge and Kreitz recruited around 500 militiamen armed with machetes.