Estrada Cabrera, Manuel (1857–1923)

Guatelaman politician, liberal dictator-president 1898–1920. Immediately after taking over as president, he changed the constitution to end the restriction to single presidential terms, and was subsequently elected and re-elected on four occasions, in rigged contests. His administration became increasingly corrupt. A revolution in 1920, triggered by the murder of an anti-government legislator, attracted broad support from labour groups and the Unionist Party. It resulted the Congress declaring Estrada ‘mentally incompetent’ and forcing him to resign. He fled the country and died in exile.

Born in Quetzaltenango, he was a lawyer and supreme court justice, before election to the national assembly, 1885. He became interior minister under President José María Reina Barrios from 1892 and took over as president when Reina Barrios was assassinated in February 1898. After early sponsorship of public health, education, and agricultural and communications improvements, widespread corruption set in, although there was economic advance, leading to the emergence of a new elite of coffee planters. Estrada ruled increasingly as a tyrannical dictator, employing secret police informers, confiscating church property, and using the army to suppress a succession of revolutionary uprisings, strikes, and assassination attempts.