Victor Raul Haya de la Torre (22 February 1895 – 2 August 1979) was a Peruvian politician who served as the leader of the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA) party from 1924 to 1979.
Biography[]
Victor Raul Haya de la Torre waas born in Trujillo, Peru in 1895, and he became active in student politics before founding the Popular University of Peru in 1923. He was expelled for his opposition to the dictator Augusto B. Leguia, and he lived in Mexico from 1923 to 1930. During his exile in Mexico, he founded the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA) in 1924. With his party he came to lead the popular opposition to the Peruvian ruling elites. Back in Peru, he lost the 1931 rigged presidential elections and spent the subsequent decade in hiding. He briefly returned as Minister without Portfolio in 1945, but was forced into exile by the renewed military takeover of 1948. He returned from Mexico in 1957 and successfully contested the 1962 presidential elections, though he was prevented from taking office by the military. His stature as Peru's leading democratic politician was recognized in 1978, when he became head of the constituent assembly responsible for the development of a new constitution. He died before he could run in the 1980 presidential election.