Óscar Benavides
Óscar Benavides was president of Peru twice, for fifteen months in 1914 and 1915 after the coup that removed Billinghurst, and from 1933 to 1939 after the assassination of his predecessor, the general whom the Congress chose to finish the murdered president's term. He kept it three years past that. He was the first marshal of the republic since the wars of independence and the soldier the Lima families trusted to keep APRA out. The first presidency was the army's answer to a populist. Billinghurst, the president the Lima crowds had put in, had proposed to dissolve the Congress by plebiscite. The colonel who commanded the garrison took the palace on 4 February 1914. He held the office until the Civilistas could arrange an election. He handed over to Pardo in August 1915. The second was the one that mattered. The president was shot at the Santa Beatriz racecourse on 30 April 1933 by an Aprista. The Congress named the general the same day. The six years were the order after the disorder. There were the war with Colombia over Leticia settled in 1934 by giving it back, and the amnesty of 1933 that let Haya de la Torre out and the ban of 1934 that put APRA back underground. There were the social security law of 1936 and the workers' hospitals, and the public works, the roads and the avenues that Lima's older suburbs date from. There were the slogan order, peace and work, and the election of October 1936, which the candidate APRA supported was winning when the Congress, at the general's request, annulled it and extended his term for three years. That was the coup by legislation that the country's constitutional lawyers still teach. He put down a revolt of his own officers in February 1939. He held the election of that October as promised. He handed over to Prado, the banker, whom he had chosen and who kept APRA out as he had. He was born in Lima, trained at the Chorrillos military school and in France, and fought the Colombians at La Pedrera on the Caquetá in 1911. After the presidency he was ambassador to Spain and to Argentina, and was the man APRA's enemies wanted back in 1945, when the party won the election through Bustamante. He died that July, at sixty-nine, before the army could ask him.
- Lived: 1876 CE – 1945 CE
- Nationality: Peruvian
- Roles: president, general, marshal
