Career
He is the only Uruguayan president to be assassinated. On March 21, 1894 Duncan Stewart, interim stepped down, and Idiarte replaced him in that office. Strife on various fronts 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.
In addition, the nature of the ruling Colorado Party of the period was seen as particularly fractious.
Public works On August 25, 1897, Idiarte was assassinated by a man named Avelino Arredondo, who had been erroneously identified several months earlier (in El Día, edited by José Batlle y Ordóñez) as a would-be assassin during a previous incident. 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.
Subsequently, the reputation of Idiarte was greatly overshadowed by that of José Batlle y Ordóñez, who later became a longserving President.