Factions and intra-party relations in the last 'neobatllista' government (1954-1956)

Abstract

In 1954, the Colorado Party won the elections for the conformation of the Collegiate Executive Branch and parliamentary elections, thus obtaining a majority in Parliament. Luis Batlle Berres took over the presidency in 1955 after a difficult intraparty negotiation to attain parliamentary support. He was Head of the List 15, a faction of the Colorado Party from a political sector known as Batllistas. Since the Colorado Party would lose the following election in 1958 to the National Party, this paper analyses the formation of this last neo-batllista government, in dialogue with the literature that has characterized inter and intraparty relations, so as to reconstruct a key historical moment and understand the crisis of the so called Uruguay Batllista.