ABSTRACT
In the grim light of this later confl ict, one of the tragedies of Primo’s coup is that it nipped in the bud attempts to build a more robust parliament that might have brought a measure of real change in slightly less strained circumstances. For at the time of his coup, reformers had trained their parliamentary guns on reducing the stranglehold of large landholders on the upper chamber. They had also set the ball rolling on agrarian reform and proposed better conditions of tenure for leaseholders. In addition, these politicians were striving to bring a degree of civil control over the army.2
