Herminio Iglesias

Herminio Iglesias (Buenos Aires, October 20, 1929-February 16, 2007) was an Argentinian politician.

Child of Galician immigrants, at the age of 13 Iglesias began to work in a factory. When he was 21 he was appointed as a worker's delegate.

He became a militant of the Peronist Party. When Juan Domingo Perón returned from his exile and recovered the Argentinian presidency in 1973, Iglesias was elected as the mayor of Avellaneda in the province of Buenos Aires. Three years later, in 1976, he was dismissed from this post following the military coup headed by Jorge Videla.

In 1983, Iglesias was the Peronist candidate for Buenos Aires Governor. However, at a meeting towards the end of the election campaign, his followers burned a coffin that represented the Radical Civic Union party. For many observers, this act was decisive in the victory of the Radicals in the general elections and his own failure in his candidacy for the Governorship. After this incident, he significantly lost his political prestige.

Between 1985 and 1989, Iglesias occupied a seat in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies. In the 1990s, he was a councillor in the municipality of Avellaneda. In his last years he moved away from political life, partly because of his health problems.