Republican Party (Bolivia)
Republican Party Partido Republicano | |
|---|---|
| Leader | Bautista Saavedra |
| Founders | José Manuel Pando Jose María Escalier Daniel Salamanca Bautista Saavedra |
| Founded | 1914 |
| Dissolved | c. 1952 |
| Split from | Liberal Party |
| Ideology | Republicanism Liberal conservatism Reformism |
| Political position | Center-right |
The Republican Party (Spanish: Partido Republicano; PR), known as the Socialist Republican Party (Spanish: Partido Republicano Socialista; PRS) from 1935, was a political party in Bolivia that existed from 1914 to c. 1952. The party espoused liberal conservative principles, and sat at the center right of the political spectrum. Led by Bautista Saavedra, its members became known as saavedristas.
Founded in 1914 as the Republican Union (Spanish: Unión Republicana) by disaffected Liberals, the party differed little ideologically from its predecessor. It participated in the 1917 presidential election before taking power in a coup d'état in 1920 that installed a government junta. In 1921, Bautista Saavedra was elected president, and his wing of the party became dominant, being labeled the Government Republican Party (Spanish: Partido Republicano de Gobierno) and, later, the Saavedra Republican Party (Spanish: Partido Republicano Saavedrista). A competing faction split to form the Genuine Republican Party.
Saavedra led the Republicans as a personalist party. He engineered the election of Hernando Siles as his successor, with his brother, Abdón Saavedra, as vice president. Early in his term, Siles split with Saavedra and formed the Nationalist Party, absorbing much of the Republicans' populist and reformist appeal. The party became identified with the political establishment in the period preceding and during the Chaco War.
Upon the conflict's conclusion, the Republicans adopted the "socialist" label to appeal to rising anti-establishment sentiment. The party supported the 1936 coup d'état that brought the military to power, but relations soon soured. Saavedra's faction was expelled, while a rival antipersonalist faction led by Gabriel Gosálvez remained. Following Saavedra's death in exile in 1939, the party joined the Concordance, which governed from 1940 to 1943. The Socialist and Genuine Republicans merged into the Republican Socialist Unity Party in 1946, maintaining their internal independence, and governed again from 1947 to 1951. After the 1952 National Revolution, the party slipped into obscurity.