López de Romaña, Eduardo (1847–1912)

Eduardo López de Romaña (b. 1847; d. 1912), president of Peru from 1899 to 1903. When President Nicolas de Piérola created the post of minister of development, he chose López de Romaña to fill it. López de Romaña successfully undertook an ambitious public works program and pledged to continue Piérola's progressive plans if the president in turn agreed to support him as the next president. On the basis of that agreement and with an alliance formed between Democrats and Civilistas, López de Romaña became president in 1899. In 1901 he began to reorganize the nation's schools to give more emphasis to technical skills in higher education. But his political naïveté made him susceptible to Civilista manipulation, and other progressive programs had less success. By the 1903 election the coalition of parties had split, some members joining the new Liberal Party and others returning to the Civilista Party. Even Piérola had abandoned him in favor of an old friend, Manuel Candamo, the Civilista candidate who won the election. The elite political machinations of the post-Piérola years thus kept power in the hands of the national oligarchy.

See alsoPeru, Political Parties: Civilista Party .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alfonso W. Quiroz, Domestic and Foreign Finance in Modern Peru, 1850–1950: Financing Visions of Development (1993).

Steve Stein, Populism in Peru: The Emergence of the Masses and the Politics of Social Control (1980).

Additional Bibliography

Leiva Viacava, Lourdes. Nicolás de Piérola. Lima: Editorial Brasa, 1995.

McEvoy, Carmen. La utopía republicana: Ideales y realidades en la formación de la cultura política peruana, 1871–1919. Lima: Pontifica Universidad Católica del Perú, Fondo Editorial, 1997.

                                        Vincent Peloso