Santa Evita And Her Role During Juan’s Administration In Argentina
Eva Person, popularly known as Santa Evita was Argentina’s First Lady until her death in 1952 due to cancer. Her dedication to politics started before her marriage to the president when she campaigned for Juan. The couple was determined to build a “New Argentina, ” and the primary agenda was to abolish the segregation of the poor, women and children. Eva Person believed that the disparity between the rich and poor was responsible for all the political, social and economic problems facing the country. As the First Lady and founder of the Eva Person Foundation, she influenced Juan and implemented various policies that transformed the social, economic and political structure of the country. The transformation was viewed as positive by various groups of people including the poor workers while others, led by the opposition leaders viewed the changes as a banquet of tyranny and poor leadership. Thus, to understand the role played by Eva Person during Juan’s administration, it is important to evaluate the suggestions and views of both her admirers and detractors.
Eva Person’s Controversy
Eva Person can be viewed as the backbone of her husband’s presidency. Eva Person started engaging in political activities even before becoming the wife of the president in 1946. Eva campaigned for the election of Juan Domingo Peron by basing her campaigns primarily on advocating for the rights of the poor workers and opposing the wealthy upper class. Eva Person interacted freely with the poor who formed the majority of the people in Argentina. After becoming the first lady, she continued helping the poor through charity and advocating for their rights. Although she advocated for the rights of the poor, she disregarded the rich employers and landowners. Before Juan Peron rose to power, Argentina’s economy was run by the wealthy exporters, landowners, and wealthy business people from within and outside Argentina. However, they ruled the land over the expense of the poor. The rich exploited the poor in various ways including low wages.
Eva Person gained popularity by demanding higher salaries and the establishment of numerous trade unions to fight for their rights. Also, Argentina consumed products that were imported from other countries hence lacked independence. Many Europeans migrated to the state to sell their products often at a higher price. Due to her influence as the first lady, she was determined to make her country independent by encouraging local manufacturing. Although she had good intentions to uplift the poor, she did so by engaging the rich and implementing ideas and policies that were contrary to their wishes. First, the increase in wages led drastically increased the cost of labor for many companies leading to laying off of workers or closing of the companies. Her approach of creating wealth for the workers through the formation of labor unions created conflict between the wealthy owners of the companies and the poor.
Eva Person rose to fame by creating hatred between the rich and the poor. The poor saw the rich as the primary reason for their misfortunes while the rich were threatened by the poor. The lift and hatred between the poor and the rich led to adverse economic, social and political effects. Eva Person could access government funds easily due to her position as the country’s first lady. She used the money to “purchase loyalty” by rewarding people who were loyal to her husband’s leadership. Some benefits including leadership positions and financial interests were reserved for faithful military leaders and politicians. Additionally, people accused her of using her Eva Person Foundation to extort money from foreign aids for her personal gains. Eva Person’s admirers.
Juan Domingo Peron’s Political Supporters
Eva Person was an eloquent speaker and addressed Peron’s supporters in campaign meetings. She used her speeches to move supporters and woe voters. Majority of Peron’s supporters were the poor people and laborers who were underpaid by their workers. Thus, she promised the people that Peron would address the poverty and labor issues that affect the people. The speeches were so moving such that women even fainted during the political rallies. Eva Person identified herself with the poor people since she hailed from a humble family in the west of Buenos Aires. Eva Person’s mother, Juana Ibarguren was a cook and received low income while her father had five illegitimate children including Eva. Thus, Eva suffered illegitimacy while growing up and understood the poor workers. The poor people needed well-paying jobs, and others wanted to own businesses. She promised to meet their needs by encouraging small-scale firms and pushing companies to pay their employees better. Therefore, the poor people saw Juan as their savior due to Eva’s speeches.
The Poor People who Required Financial Aid
Soon after becoming the First Lady in Argentina, Eva Person fulfilled her promise of helping the poor by the creation of the Eva Person Foundation. Foreign and local aids funded the foundation. Funds from the foundation bought medicine for the sick, food for the poor, and educated the poor people’s children among other charitable works. Through the foundation, Eva Person empowered the poor and sustained their lives. Every day people lined up in her house requesting financial assistance. She communicated with them, learning their needs and grunted them with whatever they needed. She created a close bond with the poor even after becoming the First Lady. The poor respected and loved Eva Person. The poor people created various names to praise her for her contributions including “Lady Bountiful, ” “Lady of Hope” and “Standard-Bearer. ” Eva Person was easily reachable despite her status. After her death due to cancer, the poor people requested the Catholic Church to canonize her due to her contribution in the society especially her help to the poor. Although the Catholic Church declined to canonize her, the people considered her as righteous and sacred referring to her as “Saint Evita”.
A Role Model to Young Children and Women
After becoming the First Lady of Argentina, Eva Person transformed herself into a “queen” but still kept in touch with the people. She wore beautiful clothes and was admirable. Her speeches also portrayed her as a leader and encouraged people (Martinez 63). Being a woman, she was expected to carry out house chores and not to engage in national politics. However, Eva Person struggled to fight for the rights of the poor despite her gender, age and being from a humble family. She also advocated for the rights of the women and encouraged them to leadership positions. Young ladies admired her courage and charity work, and thus she acted as a role model to them. Eva Person was also an actress and played various roles in the theatres. Eva Person was also instrumental in the fight for women’s rights, including the right to vote.
Detractors - The Upper Class
Before Juan Domingo Peron rose to power through a military coup, the Conservative government ruled Argentina. The then government allowed the rich people to amass wealth through mistreating and underpaying workers. The government subjected the poor people to poverty while the rich become more prosperous. After Juan Domingo Peron became the president, Eva’s agenda of reducing the dominance of the rich was achieved. Eva saw the rich people as the enemies of the poor and thus used her influence to limit their wealth by requiring them to pay their laborers more. The rich people were thus unhappy with the reforms and policies instituted by Eva. The rich thus resulted in mocking her efforts and were reluctant to the reforms.
Opposition Leaders
The political leaders who were opposed to Eva Person were unhappy with her charitable actions. Instead of viewing the medicines and food she provided to the poor as assistance, they claimed that the Eva Person was just spreading propaganda. The opposition politicians suggested that Eva Person used financial aid as a method of gaining political mileage. All the charitable materials including beds were bearing Eva Person’s initials thus the politicians suggested that her aim was not to help them but make her popular as a political leader. The political class who were against Juan viewed any development by Eva Person from a political eye and suggested that she only acted as a friend to the poor to gain popularity hence maintain her political status. Most of such politicians wanted to replace Juan as the head of state and thus were angered by Eva Person’s ideas and policies as they made Juan more popular. The politicians also claimed that Eva Person embezzled funds from her foundation.
Economists and Foreign Merchants
Eva Person used her influence on the President to make Argentina more independent and make the country rely on its own local products. Before Juan’s presidency, Argentina relied on imports from other countries. However, the administration encouraged people to establish local industries that eliminated foreign merchants. The merchants were unhappy and thus were opposed to the policies introduced by Eva Person. The economists believed that the indeed low wages and exploitation of the poor were rampant in the country. However, they were opposed to the measures implemented by Eva Person to overcome the challenges. They believed that frustrating the rich and increasing the wage rates were the major cause of inflation that was experienced in Argentina during Juan’s administration.
Conclusion
It is hard to differentiate the achievements and failures of Jean Peron and Eva Person since Jean was the president and Eva influenced his policies and decisions. Their dream of creating a “New Argentina” was accomplished according to some people while others view the couple as tyrannical. Thus, their administration attracted both critics and supporters.
