Peru enjoyed a unique political opening between 1945 and 1948. In June 1945 Jose Luis Bustamante y Rivero, the candidate of the Frente Democratico Nacional (FDN) (a broad popular front formed in 1944) was elected president in Peru's first free elections with the support of the Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA), Peru's one large, popular, mass-based political party, which had been forced to operate illegally for more than a decade. The Bustamante administration replaced the explicitly pro-oligarchic regime of Manuel Prado (1939-45). The transfer of power seemed to herald an era of freedom for popular political organization and debate, trade union development, economic restructuring, and social change. However, in October 1948, only three years after his electoral success, Bustamante was overthrown by a military coup and replaced by the dictatorship of General Manuel Odria (1948-56). The window of opportunity was firmly closed-and remained closed until the early 1960s. The failure of the Bustamante experiment (1945-8) was due to a variety of factors. The political liberalization was premature and unsustainable, primarily because traditional political elites were unwilling to concede power to a popular mandate, and the representatives of popular political power-APRA especially -were unable to seize political control or negotiate a stable, long-term political opening. The lack of a significant industrial bourgeoisie able to counter the demands of the traditional agroexport elite contributed to the resilience of the status quo.