Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre Political charges : President of the Constitutional Assembly Term in Office : 1978 - 1979 Date of Birth : 22 February 1895 Date of Death : 2 August 1979 Political party : American Popular Revolutionary Alliance Profession : Lawyer Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre ( 22 February 1895 – 2 August 1979 ) was a Peruvian political leader who founded the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance ( APRA ) political movement . Life Haya de la Torre was born in the northern Peruvian city of Trujillo . In 1913 he enrolled in the National university of Trujillo to study literature , where he met and forged a solid friendship with the Peruvian poet César Vallejo . He then enrolled in the National University of San Marcos in Lima . He was instrumental in bringing the ideas of the Argentine University Reform movement ( La Reforma ) to San Marcos , and administrative reforms were instituted in 1919 . Part of the reform movement was university extension programs , through which the university students hoped to reach the working classes . To that end , Haya de la Torre founded the Universidades Populares Gonzalez Prada , night schools for workers , which according to some historians formed the foundation for the Partido Aprista Peruano . In 1923 Haya de la Torre was exiled by the government of Augusto B. Leguía . On 7 May 1924 , while in Mexico City , Haya de la Torre founded the APRA and the pan-Latin American movement known as Aprismo . He returned to Peru in 1931 to run for President . That year , he was imprisoned for 15 months and his party was outlawed until 1934 and then also from 1935 to 1945 . In 1945 , José Luis Bustamante y Rivero became president with APRA 's support . Then , in 1948 , some party dissidents revolted in Callao and APRA was again outlawed . In November of that year , Manuel Odría seized power and forced Haya de la Torre to seek asylum in the Colombian embassy in Lima . Haya de la Torre was able to return to Peru in 1954 and his party was again legalized in 1956 . However , he continued to live mostly abroad until 1962 . He ran for president again , obtaining victory by a slim margin but not enough to be constitutionally elected . Then , a military junta annulled the elections . There were new elections in 1963 , but Haya was defeated in the vote . His party remained popular . In 1979 he became president of the constitutional assembly , which drafted a new constitution . On July 12 , on his death bed , he signed the new constitution . Ideas Haya de la Torre advocated a system of Latin American ( or , to use his preferred term , Indo-American ) solutions to Latin American problems . He called upon the region to reject both U.S. imperialism and Soviet communism . He favored universal democracy , equal rights and respect for indigenous populations , and socialist economic policies such as agrarian reform , based on the concept of communal land ownership , and state control of industry . Haya de la Torre advocated the overthrow of the land-owning oligarchies that had ruled Peru since colonial days , replacing them with an idealistic socialist elite . However , in exchange for attaining legal status for the party , he made opportunistic ideological swings to the right , and by the 1950s it had jettisoned most of its progressive , socialist ideals . In addition , Haya de la Torre 's single-handed dominance APRA resulted in pronounced sectarian and hierarchical traits , resulted in an exodus of some of APRA 's most talented young leaders to the Marxist left . Quotation ¡Ni con Washington ni con Moscú ! ( `` Not with Washington , nor with Moscow ! `` ) External links APRA 's official site More photographs of Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre See also Politics of Peru List of Presidents of Peru Preceded by : None Partido Aprista Presidential Candidate 1962 - 1963 – ( Lost ) Succeeded by : Armando Villanueva Categories : 1895 births | 1979 deaths | Peruvian politicians | Peruvian people | Democracy activists In other languages : Български | Deutsch | Español | Français | Suomi | Türkçe None Partido Aprista Presidential Candidate 1962 - 1963 – ( Lost ) Armando Villanueva 