Hector Jose Campora (26 March 1909-18 December 1980) was President of Argentina from 25 May to 12 July 1973, succeeding Alejandro Agustin Lanusse and preceding Raul Alberto Lastiri. He was a member of the Justicialist Party.
Biography[]
Hector Jose Campora Demaestre was born in Mercedes, Buenos Aires, Argentina on 26 March 1909, and he worked as a dentist in Cordoba and San Andres de Giles before befriending Minister of Labor Juan Peron in 1944. He served in the House of Representatives from 1948 to 1952, and he fled the country in 1956 following Peron's overthrow. He returned in 1959 when all of the charges were dropped, and Peron chose him as his personal delegate in 1971. Campora was elected President in 1973 as the Justicialist Party candidate, but he resigned rather than face a political crisis stemming from the close results of the election, which he almost lost to Radical Civic Union leader Ricardo Balbin; he also allowed for Peron to return to power. After the 1976 coup, Campora went into exile in Mexico, and he died of cancer in Cuernavaca in 1980.