Bullets and Ballots

Abstract

Following Haya’s loss of the 1931 presidential election in Peru, many Apristas embarked on the path of violent revolution. Successive Peruvian governments banned APRA from politics and the party operated underground. The chapter chronicles’ Haya and his party’s attempts to gain power through insurgencies, elections and military coups. Haya gradually abandoned hopes of a revolution or a military coup, and had negotiated the party’s definitive way back to legality and democratic participation. In 1962 when he ran for president, lasting enmities led the military to intervene against him, and to discredit him with accusations of homosexuality.