Guatemalan presidential election, July 1944

A presidential election was held in Guatemala on 4 July 1944.

President Jorge Ubico y Castañeda resigned on 1 July 1944. “For the last two weeks of June, students, teachers, workers, women, and middle-class professionals had demonstrated their opposition to his dictatorial policies. The old dictator fought at first and then decided that he had had enough. He left power in the hands of a military triumvirate”.^[1]

The new junta was made up of Buenaventura Pineda, Eduardo Villagrán, and Federico Ponce Vaides.^[2]

On July 4, the most ambitious member of the junta, General Ponce, easily convinced a Congress to elect him provisional president.^[3]

Ponce’s troops round up the congressional delegates and force them to vote for him. ^[4]

References

1. Dosal, Paul J. Doing business with the dictators: a political history of United Fruit in Guatemala, 1899-1944. Wilmington: Scholarly Resources. 1993. Pp. 227.
2. McCleary, Rachel M. Dictating democracy: Guatemala and the end of violent revolution. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. 1999. Pp. 237.
3. Gleijeses, Piero. Shattered hope. The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944-1954. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1991. Pp. 27.
4. Krehm, William. Democracia y tiranias en el Caribe. Buenos Aires: Editorial Parnaso. 1957. Pp. 91.