The national political history has been marked by militarism during the first half century of our independent life, which resumed leadership of the country after the War with Chile and which during the 20th century had a clear pro-oligarchic vocation in particular and anti-APRA in particular.
Beyond the debates between liberals and conservatives in the 19th century, the succession of presidents that gave life to the so-called “Aristocratic Republic” at the beginning of the 20th century, during the 20th century the most traditional sectors of the country were not able to organize the masses and the workers under the aegis of a political party.
The Leguía government, which was hit head-on by the international crisis of 1929, the coup led by Commander Sánchez Cerro in August 1930, and the electoral process of October 1931, showed the new face of a country with new social and political actors. The presence of APRA and Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre in 1931 represented a new path for an electorate that was represented through the APRA Parliamentary Cell in the Constituent Congress of that time. The official results of the 1931 elections gave Sánchez Cerro, leader of the Revolutionary Union, the winner.
APRA questioned the results and in February 1932, the 23 APRA constituents would be arbitrarily “outrageous” from Congress by a government that used repression as a political weapon. Analyzing in detail the events that occurred in 1932 or 1933 is still a pending task. The persecution and proscription of Aprismo is part of national history and remained in force until 1956, except for the period between 1945 and 1948 in which José Luis Bustamante y Rivero was elected President with Aprista votes.
A few days ago, former congressman Víctor Andres García Belaunde (on a political program) reiterated that in the 1962 general elections a fraud was consummated in favor of APRA and to the detriment of Acción Popular. The former congressman forgot to point out how the high leadership of Acción Popular visited the tyrant of the day, to express their greetings and congratulations for having perpetrated a coup and preventing Haya de la Torre from being anointed President of the Republic.
On July 18, 1962, General Pérez Godoy put an end to the government of Manuel Prado and prevented the installation of the Preparatory Boards for the new Congress on that day, after having held the General Elections that had given the Aprista leader the winner with a difference of about 15 thousand votes, compared to Fernando Belaunde. On more than one occasion I have argued that the “coup” attitude of Acción Popular and its leader were manifest.
The military dictatorship annulled the elections and called new elections, in which (a year later) APRA and Haya de la Torre obtained more votes than in 1962. The so-called “Veto” against the election of Haya de la Torre was manifest and even more so when President Manuel Prado himself personally expressed to the founder of Aprismo the will of the Armed Forces.
The so-called “Veto Speech” delivered on July 4, 1962 (at the headquarters of the Aprista Party) today constitutes a lesson in detachment and vocation to preserve freedoms in a country where dictatorships ruled. Haya de la Torre gave a lesson by proving to be the leader of a party with doctrine and history. Popular Action without doctrine, was in the sixties the expression of the middle classes in a society marked by industrialization and growing urbanization.
Acción Popular knew how to combine anti-Aprismo with the figure of a young and charismatic leader like Fernando Belaunde Terry. In the General Elections of 1963, Popular Action achieved victory in Alliance with the Christian Democracy, the Social Progressive Party and the pro-Soviet Communist Party. Haya de la Torre, who dialectically denied Marxism and forged a political thought that marked and influenced all of Latin America, never compromised with any dictatorship. Years later, the military coup perpetrated by General Juan Velasco Alvarado prevented General Elections from being held in 1969, in which Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre would surely have been elected president. In the final stage of his life, he would be elected President of the Constituent Assembly that approved the Political Charter of 1979 that years later would be violated by Alberto Fujimori on April 5, 1992.
Politics must be an instrument to form and educate the people in the values and principles for freedom. National history must clearly point out all those who at the time violated the constitutional order, were not capable of defending it, did not have the greatness to admit an electoral defeat and encouraged “coups d’état.”
By: José Antonio Torres Iriarte