Vicente Saadi

Who was Vicente Saadi?

Vicente Leonidas Saadi was an Argentine Justicialist Party politician. He was a senator and governor for Catamarca Province, and became the patriarch of a family that has dominated Catamarca politics since the 1940s.

Born in Belén, his family were prosperous Syrian immigrants who became prominent in local commerce. He allied himself with the centrist Radical Civic Union early on, though after the rise of populist leader Juan Perón in 1945, he switched allegiances for the latter.

Saadi was elected Senator in 1946, serving until 1949 when he was elected on the Peronist ticket as Governor of Catamarca. The party's leader, President Perón, ordered Saadi removed from his post after four months, however, amid allegations of "nepotism and despotism" in his administration of the remote province. Saadi was subsequently expelled from the party, and served time in prison.

He was married to Alicia Cubas de Saadi, and a number of their children went on to become leading Catamarca Province figures, as well. Ramón Saadi was elected governor of Catamarca in 1987, Alicia Saadi was elected to the Senate in 1999, and Vicente Saadi and his daughter-in-law.

He was ultimately re-elected to the Senate in 1973 on behalf of the Peronist-led Frejuli alliance, serving until the dissolution of the Argentine Senate in the March 1976 coup. In the 1970s Saadi had been a leading supporter of the far-left Montoneros, and set up the Intransigencia y Movilización faction; he was a patron of future Defense Minister Nilda Garré.