Aniceto Arce Ruiz

Aniceto Arce Ruiz (1824-1906) was President of Bolivia from 1888 until 1892. The Aniceto Arce Province is named after him.

With official "help" from outgoing president Gregorio Pacheco, Arce, the top Conservative Party caudillo, at long last came to power in 1888, via what many consider electoral fraud. His opponent had again been the long-suffering Eliodoro Camacho. Even more so than Pacheco, Arce ruled repressively, but also consolidated many advances, including the completion of the first intra-Bolivian railway and the electrification of La Paz, first such accomplishment the country. Totally pro-capitalist, devoted to practically unrestricted free entrepreneurship in the English tradition, anti-Indian, and pro-insertion into the international economy under the aegis of foreign capital, he faced many Liberal rebellions but somehow managed to hold on to power. He completed his term and in 1992 passed the baton to another Conservative, Mariano Baptista. Aniceto Arce retuerned to politics in 1904, when he opposed the Liberal candidate Ismael Montes. Having lost that election, he returned to his vast rural estate and died in 1906 aged 82.