A Gamble Too Many: The Elections of March 1962 and the Fall of Frondizi

Abstract

The year 1961 was signalled by a series of national and provincial elections whose outcome all parties concerned would take as an indication of expected results in the March 1962 contest. The importance of this date lay in the fact that it would be the occasion for the renewal of half the Chamber of Deputies as well as fourteen governorships. Moreover, in the case of the UCRI the 1961 elections helped them assess their strength — or lack of it — now that the party could no longer count on the Peronist votes. When Frondizi normalised the CGT in March 1961 and allowed Peronism a partial legality in 1962, he did it less to fulfil old promises than to scare the anti-Peronist forces into supporting him: the strategy seems to have worked since the UCRI’s victories in provincial elections throughout 1961 reflected the massive support of anti-Peronist voters, while Peronism either abstained or took part in the elections under the guise of neo-Peronist parties.