Manuel A. Odría
Encyclopedia
Manuel Arturo Odría Amoretti (November 26, 1897 – February 18, 1974) was the President of Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

 from 1948 to 1956.

Manuel Odría was born in 1897 in Tarma
Tarma
Santa Ana de la Ribera de Tarma is a city in Junín Region, Perú. Tarma is the capital city of the Province of Tarma, and is also called the Pearl of the Andes. The city is located at around , at an elevation of around 3000 m...

, a city in the central Andes
Andes
The Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...

 just east of Lima. He graduated first in his class from the Chorillos Military Academy in 1915. He joined the army and as a lieutenant-colonel was a war hero in the 1941 Ecuadorian-Peruvian war
Ecuadorian-Peruvian war
The Ecuadorian–Peruvian War was a border war fought between July 5, 1941 and July 31, 1941, the first of three military conflicts that occurred between these two South American nations during the 20th century....

. He soon achieved the rank of Brigadier General.

In 1945, José Bustamante had attained the presidency with the help of the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance
American Popular Revolutionary Alliance
The Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana is a centre-left Peruvian political party.At the legislative elections held on 9 April 2006, the party won 22.6% of the popular vote and 36 out of 120 seats in the Congress of the Republic...

 (APRA). Soon, major disagreements arose between Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre
Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre
Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre was a Peruvian political leader who founded the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance political movement.-Life:Haya de la Torre was born in the northern Peruvian city of Trujillo...

, the founder of APRA
APRA
APRA or Apra may refer to:* American Popular Revolutionary Alliance , a Peruvian political party* Australasian Performing Right Association, a copyright collecting society...

, and President Bustamante. The President disbanded his Aprista cabinet and replaced it with a mostly military one. Odría, a fierce opponent of APRA, was appointed Minister of Government and Police. In 1948, Odría and other right-wing elements urged Bustamante to ban APRA. When the President refused, Odría resigned his post. On October 27, 1948, he led a successful military coup against the government and took over as president. After two years, he resigned and had one of his colleagues, Zenón Noriega
Zenón Noriega Agüero
Zenón Noriega Agüero was a Peruvian army general who formally was president of a military Junta for two months in 1950.- Biography :...

, take office as a puppet president so he could run for president as a civilian. He was duly elected a month later as the only candidate.

Odría came down hard on APRA, momentarily pleasing the oligarchy and all others on the right, but like Juan Perón
Juan Perón
Juan Domingo Perón was an Argentine military officer, and politician. Perón was three times elected as President of Argentina though he only managed to serve one full term, after serving in several government positions, including the Secretary of Labor and the Vice Presidency...

, he followed a populist
Populism
Populism can be defined as an ideology, political philosophy, or type of discourse. Generally, a common theme compares "the people" against "the elite", and urges social and political system changes. It can also be defined as a rhetorical style employed by members of various political or social...

 course that won him great favor with the poor and lower classes. A thriving economy allowed him to indulge in expensive but crowd-pleasing social policies. At the same time, however, civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...

 were severely restricted and corruption
Political corruption
Political corruption is the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by...

 was rampant throughout his régime. It was feared that his dictatorship would run indefinitely so it came as a surprise when Odría legalized opposition parties in 1956 and called fresh elections--in which he would not be a candidate. He was succeeded by a former president, Manuel Prado.

National elections were again held in 1962 and Odría ran as a right-wing candidate for the Unión Nacional Odriista party. The initial election found none of the three major candidates - Odría, Haya de la Torre and Fernando Belaúnde
Fernando Belaúnde Terry
Fernando Belaúnde Terry was President of Peru for two non-consecutive terms . Deposed by a military coup in 1968, he was re-elected in 1980 after eleven years of military rule...

- receiving the required one third of the vote. It appeared that Odría would win the Presidency in Congress, after having made a deal with Haya de la Torre, but a military coup removed President Prado from office only a few days before his term ended. Elections were again held in 1963 with the same three major candidates. This time Belaúnde won with 39% of the vote.

During the Belaúnde Administration, Odría made an alliance with Haya de la Torre to create a single opposition block in Parliament, which became known as the APRA-UNO Coalition. As a political force, they managed to create a strong parliamentary force against President Belaúnde, who was forced to make important concessions to the Coalition in order to get most of his party-sponsored legislation enacted. The Coalition suffered a setback after losing the elections for mayor in the capital, Lima.

After the military coup that overthrew Belaúnde, Odría kept a low profile in Peruvian politics until his death in 1974.
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