Urriolagoitía, Mamerto (1895–1974)

Mamerto Urriolagoitía (b. 5 December 1895; d. 4 June 1974), president of Bolivia (1949–1951). Born in Sucre, Urriolagoitía became a lawyer and specialized in international law. From 1919 to 1937, he served as Bolivia's Consul General in Great Britain. At the conclusion of his diplomatic career, he returned to Sucre and won election to Bolivia's Senate in the early 1940s. Urriolagoitía became a leading member of a conservative Republican party coalition (Partido de la Unió n Republicana Socialista—PURS). In the election of 1947, the PURS candidate Enrique Hertzog was elected president and Mamerto Urriolagoitía, vice president. Hertzog resigned in May 1949, a few days after the mid-term election resulted in a vote that favored the middle-class reformist Nationalist Revolutionary Movement (MNR). As president Urriolagoitía repeatedly used military intervention to put down worker uprisings in the mining areas and cities. After the MNR won the May 1951 presidential elections, Urriolagoitía resigned on 16 May 1951. He handed over the government to General Hugo Ballivián, who, a few days later, abrogated the elections.

See alsoBolivia, Political Parties: Nationalist Revolutionary Movement (MNR); Bolivia, Political Parties: Republican Party.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Herbert S. Klein, Parties and Political Change in Bolivia, 1880–1952 (1969), pp. 388-400, and Bolivia: The Evolution of a Multi-Ethnic Society (1992), pp. 222, 224.

Additional Bibliography

Crespo, Alfonso, and Mario Lara. Enrique Hertzog: El hidalgo presidente. Lima: s.n., 1997.

Urriolagoitia Villa, Gastón. Mamerto Urriolagoitia Har-riague: Apuntes sobre una vida. Buenos Aires: s.n., 1997.

                                    Erwin P. Grieshaber