Background
Hernando Siles Reyes was born on 5 April 1881 in Sucre.
Diplomat lawyer politician president
Hernando Siles Reyes was born on 5 April 1881 in Sucre.
He received his law degree in Sucre in 1905.
He was a professor of civil law at the National Institute of Commerce in La Paz (1911-1917) and the University of San Andres. He was rector of the San Francisco Xavier University in Sucre (1917-1920). He entered politics in 1920 as deputy for Oruro and later was senator for Chuquisaca. In the administration of President Bautista Saavedra he was minister of education, minister of war and colonization, and minister to Peru.
In 1925 President Saavedra unable to engineer his own reelection, hand-picked Hernando Siles, with Saavedra’s brother, Abdón, as vice president. Siles assumed office in January 1926. Although having signed a pact with the Saavedra brothers to allow the Socialist Republican Party and Bautista Saavedra to dominate political affairs. Siles broke his pledge and founded the Nationalist Party in January 1927.
In early May 1930, he created a provisional government and stepped down in order to run. When a student was killed in an antigovemment demonstration, the crisis escalated into a general uprising of students, workers, opposition parties, and the army. Siles was toppled on June 25, 1930, in a bloody revolt.
Fleeing to Brazil, Siles later returned to Bolivia and served in various diplomatic posts. He died in an airplane crash en route from La Paz to Lima.
Siles’ government initiated important constitutional and electoral reforms, and continued the economic development policies of the previous regimes. A labor law was passed and the Department of Labor was established and university reform in 1928 guaranteed university autonomy. That year, the North American Kemmerer Mission created the Central Bank. The government sponsored new roads and rail connections and opened up new telegraph lines. In 1927—1928 important loans were negotiated with U. S. banks, but critics charged that terms were too onerous for Bolivia. On the other hand. Siles faced a decline in tin prices, the onset of the Depression, and chronic budget deficits. A major Indian uprising in 1927 at Chayanta in Potosi was put down by the army.
The dispute with Paraguay over the Chaco escalated. On December 5, 1928, Paraguayans attacked Bolivian Fort Vanguardia. In reprisal. Siles ordered the seizure of two Paraguayan forts. A conciliation commission met in Washington in 1929, found Paraguay at fault, and ordered reconstruction of Fort Vanguardia.
Against the advice of members of his own party, Siles decided to alter the constitution to permit his own reelection.
