Juan Idiarte Borda

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Juan Idiarte Borda (1844-1897) was a Uruguayan political figure.

1 Background
2 President of Uruguay
3 Assassination
4 Succession
5 See also
6 Reference

[edit] Background

Originating from the Uruguayan department of Soriano, which he was to represent in Uruguay's chamber of deputies, Idiarte was a member of the Colorado Party, which dominated the country's politics for many years.

[edit] President of Uruguay

On March 21, 1894 Duncan Stewart, interim President of Uruguay stepped down, and Idiarte replaced him in that office.

Idiarte's presidency was beset by a number of severe difficulties which found their origins in a host of commercial, ideological and personality issues, in the background of Uruguay's intermittent Civil War, and also in the particularly fractious nature of the Colorado Party of the period. Idiarte's term of office, however, was also characterized by a program of public works, including the development of the Port of Montevideo and the establishment of a national Bank.

[edit] Assassination

On August 25, 1897 Idiarte was assassinated by a man whose name, Arredondo, had been printed several months previously in El Día, edited by José Batlle y Ordóñez, ostensibly but erroneously identifying him as a would-be assassin during a previous incident earlier that year. While Idiarte's family warned him of an assassination plot on the part of his party enemies, and although the assassin was a known strong supporter of Batlle, the latter successfully maintained a plausible deniability in connection with the crime, the only instance to date of a presidential assassination in the history of Uruguay ^[1].

Subsequently, the reputation of Idiarte was greatly overshadowed by that of José Batlle y Ordóñez, who later became a longserving President.