Lerroux, Alejandro

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Alejandro Lerroux (älāhän´drō lārōō´), 1864–1949, Spanish politician. He first won prominence as a radical and virulently anticlerical demagogue in Barcelona. However, he gradually moved to the right politically. Under the second republic (1931–36) he held various cabinet positions and was several times premier from 1933 to 1935. In Oct., 1934, his government suppressed a miners' uprising in Asturias and a Catalan separatist revolt. A financial scandal forced his resignation in 1935. He fled to Portugal after the outbreak (1936) of civil war, but was allowed to return to Spain in 1947.