José Néstor Lencinas

José Néstor Lencinas (February 26, 1859 - January 20, 1920) was an Argentine politician and former Governor of Mendoza Province.

Born in San Carlos, Mendoza, Lencinas enrolled at the University of Buenos Aires; while in law school, his adviser, Dr. Carlos Tejedor, recommended he transfer to the University of Córdoba. Lencinas became active politically at the latter school, and participated in an effort to force the Governor of Córdoba, Antonio del Viso, to resign (which the latter, a member of one of the province's leading families, did, in 1880). Lencinas earned his Law Degree with a thesis on Constitutional Law.

Lencinas returned to Mendoza Province, and was shortly afterwards elected to the Provincial Legislature. He stepped down in 1887 to travel extensively in Europe and the United States, at which time he became an adherent of Theosophy. During his travels, Lencinas reportedly took over the helm of an ocean liner whose captain had been incapacitated by panic. He returned in 1888, was reelected to the legislature, and in 1890, was named Economy Minister by interim Governor Oseas Guiñazú. He established a newspaper in the city of Mendoza, La Reforma, and was a founding member of what became the leading advocacy group for electoral reform and the secret ballot, the Radical Civic Union (UCR). Vigorously opposed by the senior Senator from Mendoza, Emilio Civit, these moves led the closure of La Reforma in 1892, and to the province's renewed "intervention" by federal authorities.

Electoral fraud led to a failed civil uprising on the part of the UCR in 1893, and again in 1905. Lencinas participated in both, and became notable for being the only insurrectionist to overthrow a provincial governor during the latter conflict (if only briefly). He avoided jail in the then-notorious Ushuaia prison, or execution, by fleeing to neighboring Chile after commandeering a Transandine Railway locomotive. Lencinas, as did surviving fellow participants in the revolt, ultimately benefited from a 1906 pardon by President José Figueroa Alcorta.

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