Justicialist Party

Justicialist Party Partido Justicialista
File:Logo of the Justicialist Party.svg
Abbreviation	PJ
President	Alberto Fernández
Vice-President	Cristina Álvarez Rodríguez
Senate leader	José Mayans (FdT)
Chamber leader	Máximo Kirchner (FdT)
Founder	Juan Perón
Founded	21 November 1946 (1946-11-21)
Merger of	Labour Party UCR Board Renewal Independent Party
Headquarters	130 Matheu Street Buenos Aires
Student wing	Peronist University Youth
Youth wing	Peronist Youth
Membership  (2019)	3,818,678
Ideology	Peronism Populism Syncretism Factions: Kirchnerism (majority) Menemism (minority)
Political position	Syncretic Kirchnerists: Centre-left Menemists: Centre-right
National affiliation	Frente de Todos
Continental affiliation	Christian Democrat Organization of America COPPPAL
Colors	Light blue      White
Anthem	"Peronist March"
Seats in the Senate	36 / 72
Seats in the Chamber of Deputies	91 / 257
Governors	11 / 24
Election symbol
50px
Flag
Flag
Website
pj.org.ar
Politics of Argentina Political parties Elections

The Justicialist Party (Spanish: Partido Justicialista, IPA: [paɾˈtiðo xustisjaˈlista]; abbr. PJ) is a major political party in Argentina, and the largest branch within Peronism.

Current president Alberto Fernández belongs to the Justicialist Party (and has, since 2021, served as its chairman), as well as former presidents Juan Domingo Perón, Héctor Cámpora, Raúl Lastiri, Isabel Perón, Carlos Menem, Ramón Puerta, Adolfo Rodríguez Saá, Eduardo Camaño, Eduardo Duhalde, Néstor Kirchner, and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Justicialists have been the largest party in Congress almost consistently since 1987.

Founded by Juan Domingo Perón, it was previously called the Peronist Party after its founder. It is the largest party in Congress; however, this does not reflect the divisions within the party over the role of Kirchnerism, the left-wing populist faction of the party, which is opposed by the dissident Peronists, the conservative faction of the party.

History

File:Escudo-PJ.jpg

First emblem of the Peronist Party, used from 1946 to 1955

The Justicialist Party was founded in 1946 by Juan and Evita Perón, and superseded the Labour Party on which Perón had been elected President. After the enactment of women's suffrage, the Female Peronist Party, led by the First Lady, was also established. All Peronist entities were banned from elections after 1955, when the Revolución Libertadora overthrew Perón, and civilian governments' attempt to lift Peronism's ban from legislative and local elections in 1962 and 1965 resulted in military coups.

Basing itself on the policies espoused by Perón as Argentine president, the party's platform has from its inception centered on populism, and its most consistent base of support has historically been the General Confederation of Labor, Argentina's largest trade union. Perón ordered the mass nationalization of public services, strategic industries, and the critical farm export sector; enacted progressive labor laws and social reforms; and accelerated public works investment.

His tenure also favored technical schools, harassed university staff, and promoted urbanization as it raised taxes on the agrarian sector. Those trends earned Peronism the loyalty of much of the working and lower classes but helped alienate the upper and middle classes of society. Censorship and repression intensified, and following his loss of support from the influential Argentine Catholic Church, Perón was ultimately and violently deposed in a 1955 coup.

The alignment of groups as supporting or opposing Peronism has largely endured, but the policies of Peronism itself varied greatly over the subsequent decades, as did increasingly those put forth by its many competing figures. During Perón's exile, it became a big tent party united almost solely by its support for the aging leader's return. A series of violent incidents, as well as Perón's negotiations with both the military regime and diverse political factions, helped lead to his return to Argentina in 1973 and to his election in September that year.

An impasse followed in which the party had a place both for leftist armed organizations such as Montoneros, and far-right factions such as José López Rega's Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance. Following Perón's death in 1974, however, the tenuous understanding disintegrated, and a wave of political violence ensued, ultimately resulting in the March 1976 coup. The Dirty War of the late 1970s, which cost hundreds of Peronists (among thousands more) their lives, solidified the party's populist outlook, particularly following the failure of conservative Economy Minister José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz's free trade and deregulatory policies after 1980.

In the first democratic elections after the end of the dictatorship of the National Reorganization Process, in 1983, the Justicialist Party lost to the Radical Civic Union (UCR). Six years later, it returned to power with Carlos Menem, during whose term the Constitution was reformed to allow for presidential reelection. Menem (1989–1999) adopted neoliberal right-wing policies which changed the overall image of the party.

The Justicialist Party was defeated by a coalition formed by the UCR and the centre-left FrePaSo (itself a left-wing offshoot of the PJ) in 1999, but regained political weight in the 2001 legislative elections, and was ultimately left in charge of managing the selection of an interim president after the economic collapse of December 2001. Justicialist Eduardo Duhalde, chosen by Congress, ruled during 2002 and part of 2003.

The 2003 elections saw the constituency of the party split in three, as Carlos Menem, Néstor Kirchner (backed by Duhalde) and Adolfo Rodríguez Saá ran for the presidency leading different party coalitions. After Kirchner's victory, the party started to align behind his leadership, moving slightly to the left.

The Justicialist Party effectively broke apart in the 2005 legislative elections when two factions ran for a Senate seat in Buenos Aires Province: Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (then the first lady) and Hilda González de Duhalde (wife of former president Duhalde). The campaign was particularly vicious. Kirchner's side allied with other minor forces and presented itself as a heterodox, left-leaning Front for Victory (FpV), while Duhalde's side stuck to older Peronist tradition. González de Duhalde's defeat to her opponent marked, according to many political analysts, the end to Duhalde's dominance over the province, and was followed by a steady defection of his supporters to the winner's side.

Néstor Kirchner proposed the entry of the party into the Socialist International in February 2008. His dominance of the party was undermined, however, by the 2008 Argentine government conflict with the agricultural sector, when a bill raising export taxes was introduced with presidential support. Subsequent growers' lockouts helped result in the defection of numerous Peronists from the FpV caucus, and further losses during the 2009 mid-term elections resulted in the loss of the FpV absolute majorities in both houses of Congress.

In 2015, the PJ, with its presidential candidate Daniel Scioli, was defeated by the Cambiemos coalition. Mauricio Macri was inaugurated as President of Argentina, ending 12 years of Kirchnerism.

However, in the elections of 2019, the PJ joined the Frente de Todos, which won the presidential elections. The PJ returned to power, with Alberto Fernández as President of the nation.

Ideology

From its foundation, the Justicialist Party has been a Peronist catch-all party, which focuses on the figure of Juan Perón and his wife, Eva, with economic populist ideals.

From the return of Perón in 1973 and under the leadership of Isabel Perón, the Justicialist Party was no longer characterized by anti-imperialist and revolutionary tones but by a strong focus on anticommunism (of which it became the main bulwark in South America) and the support of economic liberalism.

That line continued even after the military dictatorship of the National Reorganization Process, with the government of Carlos Menem until that of Eduardo Duhalde. The party moved from being a Tercera Posición ("Third Position") to a centre-right party, while rival Radical Civic Union acted as a centre-left party.

Since 2003, the party has undergone an abrupt revolution, with the rise of a faction known as the Front for Victory, led by Néstor Kirchner. The policies and ideology of that faction were dubbed Kirchnerism, a mix of socialism, left-wing nationalism and radicalism. Kirchner was elected President of Argentina and soon became a popular left-wing figure. The party shifted to being left-wing populist, while the Radical Civic Union joined with other anti-Kirchnerist centrist and center-right parties including Republican Proposal. After his death in 2010, his wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, took over the leadership of the Front for Victory, which continues to be a major faction of the Justicialist Party.

Leaders

The party is headed by a National Committee, whose president is the de facto leader of the party.

• 1946–1974: Juan Domingo Perón (President: 1946–1955, 1973–1974)
• 1974–1985: María Estela Martínez (President: 1974–1976)
• 1985–1990: Antonio Cafiero
• 1990–2001: Carlos Menem (President: 1989–1999)
• 2001: Ruben Marín (interim)
• 2001–2003: Carlos Menem
• 2003–2004: Eduardo Fellner
• 2004–2005: (No leader)
• 2005–2008: Ramón Ruiz
• 2008–2009: Néstor Kirchner (President: 2003–2007)
• 2009: Daniel Scioli (interim)
• 2009–2010: Néstor Kirchner
• 2010–2014: Daniel Scioli (interim)
• 2016–2018: José Luis Gioja
• 2018: Luis Barrionuevo (judicial controller)
• 2018–2021: José Luis Gioja
• 2021–present: Alberto Fernández (President: 2019–present)

Electoral history

Presidential elections

Election year	Candidate(s)	First Round		Second Round		Result	Note
		# votes	% vote	# votes	% vote
1951	Juan Perón	4,745,168	63.40			Y Elected	as the Peronist Party
1958	no candidate (banished)					—
1963	no candidate (banished)					—
M-1973	Héctor Cámpora	5,907,464	49.56			Y Elected	as the Justicialist Party part of the Justicialist Liberation Front
S-1973	Juan Perón	7,359,252	61.85			Y Elected	part of the Justicialist Liberation Front
1983	Ítalo Lúder	5,944,402	40.16			N Defeated	247 Electoral College seats
1989	Carlos Menem	7,953,301	47.49			Y Elected	325 Electoral College seats, part of the Popular Justicialist Front
1995	Carlos Menem	8,687,319	49.94			Y Elected	Joint-ticket (PJ—UCeDé)
1999	Eduardo Duhalde	7,254,417	38.27			N Defeated	part of the Justicialist Coalition for Change
2003	Carlos Menem	4,740,907	24.45	null	0	N 2nd-R Forfeited	Front for Loyalty, a faction of PJ
	Néstor Kirchner	4,312,517	22.24	null	0	Y 2nd-R Unopposed	Front for Victory, a faction of PJ
	Adolfo Rodríguez Saá	2,735,829	14.11			N 1st-R Defeated	Front of the Popular Movement, a faction of PJ
2007	Cristina Kirchner	8,651,066	45.29			Y Elected	part of the Front for Victory Alliance
	Alberto Rodríguez Saá	1,458,955	7.64			N Defeated	part of the Justice, Union and Liberty Front Alliance
2011	Cristina Kirchner	11,865,055	54.11			Y Elected	Front for Victory, a faction of PJ
2015	Daniel Scioli	9,338,449	37.08	12,198,441	48.60	N 2nd-R Defeated	part of the Front for Victory Alliance
2019	Alberto Fernández	12,473,709	48.10			Y Elected	part of the Everyone's Front Alliance

Congressional elections

Chamber of Deputies

Election year	votes	%	seats won	Total seats	Position	Presidency	Note
1948		64.1		109 / 158	Majority	Juan Perón (PP)	as the Peronist Party
1951		63.5		135 / 149	Majority	Juan Perón (PP)	as the Peronist Party
1954	4,977,586	62.96		161 / 173	Majority	Juan Perón (PJ)	as the Peronist Party
1958	null	0	0	0 / 187	Banned	Pedro Eugenio Aramburu (de facto)
1960	null	0	0	0 / 192	Banned	Arturo Frondizi (UCRI)
1962	1,592,446	17.53		23 / 192	Minority	Arturo Frondizi (UCRI)	as Unión Popular
1963				16 / 192	Minority	José María Guido (UCRI)	as Unión Popular and other pro-Justicialist
1965	2,833,528 (UP only)	29.6 (UP only)		52 / 192 (UP only)	Minority	Arturo Umberto Illia (UCRP)	as Unión Popular and other pro-Justicialist
1973	5,908,414	48.7		144 / 243	Majority	Alejandro Agustín Lanusse (de facto)	as Justicialist Party part of the Justicialist Liberation Front
1983	5,697,610	38.5	56 / 127	111 / 254	Minority	Reynaldo Bignone (de facto)
1985	5,259,331	34.3	55 / 127	101 / 254	Minority	Raúl Alfonsín (UCR)
1987	6,649,362	41.5	60 / 127	108 / 254	Minority	Raúl Alfonsín (UCR)
1989	7,324,033	42.9	65 / 127	126 / 254	Minority	Raúl Alfonsín (UCR)	part of the Popular Justicialist Front
1991	6,288,222	40.2	62 / 127	116 / 257	Minority	Carlos Menem (PJ)
1993	6,946,586	42.5	64 / 127	127 / 257	Minority	Carlos Menem (PJ)
1995	7,294,828	43.0	68 / 127	131 / 257	Majority	Carlos Menem (PJ)
1997	6,267,973	36.3	50 / 127	118 / 257	Minority	Carlos Menem (PJ)
1999	5,986,674	32.3	51 / 127	101 / 257	Minority	Carlos Menem (PJ)
2001	5,267,136	37.5	67 / 127	121 / 257	Minority	Fernando de la Rúa (UCR—Alianza)
2003	5,511,420	35.1	62 / 127	129 / 257	Majority	Eduardo Duhalde (PJ)
2005	6,883,925	40.5	80 / 128	140 / 257	Majority	Néstor Kirchner (PJ-FPV)
2007	5,557,087	45.6	82 / 127	162 / 257	Majority	Néstor Kirchner (PJ-FPV)
2009	5,941,184	30.3	44 / 127	110 / 257	Minority	Cristina Kirchner (PJ-FPV)
2011	12,073,675	58.6	86 / 130	130 / 257	Majority	Cristina Kirchner (PJ-FPV)
2013	12,702,809	55.4	47 / 127	133 / 257	Majority	Cristina Kirchner (PJ-FPV)
2015	8,797,279	37.4	59 / 127	95 / 257	Minority	Cristina Kirchner (PJ-FPV)
2017	9,518,813	39.0	58 / 127	110 / 257	Minority	Mauricio Macri (PRO-Cambiemos)	as Citizen's Unity
2019	11,359,508	45.5	64 / 127	122 / 257	Minority	Mauricio Macri (PRO-Cambiemos)

Senate elections

Election year	votes	%	seats won	Total seats	Position	Presidency	Note
2001				40 / 72	Majority	Fernando de la Rúa (UCR-Alianza)
2003	1,852,456	40.7	18 / 24	41 / 72	Majority	Eduardo Duhalde (PJ)
2005	3,572,361	45.1	18 / 24	45 / 72	Majority	Néstor Kirchner (PJ-FPV)
2007	1,048,187	45.6	14 / 24	48 / 72	Majority	Néstor Kirchner (PJ-FPV)
2009	756,695	30.3	8 / 24	34 / 72	Minority	Cristina Kirchner (PJ-FPV)
2011	5,470,241	54.6	12 / 24	43 / 72	Majority	Cristina Kirchner (PJ-FPV)
2013	1,608,846	32.1	14 / 24	40 / 72	Majority	Cristina Kirchner (PJ-FPV)
2015	2,336,037	32.7	11 / 24	39 / 72	Majority	Cristina Kirchner (PJ-FPV)
2017	3,785,518	32.7	9 / 24	36 / 72	Minority	Mauricio Macri (PRO—Cambiemos)
2019			13 / 24	39 / 72	Majority	Mauricio Macri (PRO—Cambiemos)