Radical Civic Union (Argentina)

UCR; Unión Cívica Radical

Last modified: 2005-01-22 by antonio martins
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• Presentation

• Argentine political flags
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Presentation

UCR is a party with more than 100 years (with evolution in his own name).
Nicolas Rucks, 16 May 2000

The origin of the Unión Cívica Radical (U.C.R.) is the revolution of 1890 in Buenos Aires, against the President Miguel Juárez Celman. This movement wanted some changes in Argentine Politics. An important point of the demands was the change of the Argentine electoral system, because in those times Argentine presidents were elected in fraudulent elections, no secret, nor “clean”. The revolutionaries wanted the establishment of secret, universal and obligatory vote. The original party was called Unión Cívica (Civic Union).

After the Revolution of 1890 the party Unión Cívica divided in Unión Cívica Nacional (National Civic Union) and Unión Cívica Radical (Radical Civic Union). The U.C.N. came to an agreement with the government without changing the electoral system, while the U.C.R. did not accept that and applied a policy of electoral abstention and uprisings with the help of some sectors of the Army. The U.C.R. did not give up in its demand for secret, universal and obligatory vote. The party U.C.N. disappeared in short time, however the U.C.R. continued in Argentine politics. In 1912 with the Ley Saenz Peńa (Saenz Peńa Law) the Argentine electoral system was changed, and Hipólito Yrigoyen from the U.C.R. was the first Argentine President democratically elected by secret, universal and obligatory vote in 1916.

The U.C.R. or “Radicalismo”, is not a “radical” party as we understand this word nowadays. The meaning of the word "radical" in the party’s name is that the idea was to follow “radically” the ideas of the old Unión Cívica (Civic Union). The U.C.R. wanted to differentiate itself from the U.C.N. that had come to an agreement with the government.

Francisco Gregoric, 01 Mar 2002

About the flag

The Radical Flag appeared after the Revolution of 1890. (apparently it was first hosted in the city of Rosario in 1893). In this time (before 1912) the Radical Flag was used in political meetings and during the uprisings against the government. Since 1912, the flag has been used in meetings of the U.C.R.

The meaning of the colors in the U.C.R. flag:

• white represents the purity of feelings of the U.C.R. members.
• red represents the courage of U.C.R. members in their fight for Democracy.

According to historian Eduardo S. Rosenkrantz [rkz97] those colors came from the old colors of Argentine Federalism from the XIXth Century. For example, Juan Manuel de Rosas (and other