[2] Máximo Fernández Alvarado of the Republican Party won the presidential election, but both he and runner-up Carlos Durán Cartín later resigned and Alfredo González Flores was appointed president by Congress on 8 May 1914.

Yglesias, age 52, had previously been president and his government had been quite authoritarian, among other things reforming the Constitution by force in order to be reelected indefinitely and repressing the opposition and the press.

Durán, on his part, was candidate of the National Union Party that had previously ruled with Ascensión Esquivel Ibarra and Cleto González Víquez.

[4] The official candidate was Fernandez, but did not have the backing of then president and fellow party member Ricardo Jimenez Oreamuno, who stayed on the sidelines and did not endorse any nominee.

Fernández was accused of being an ambitious businessman in collusion with foreign interests and having had links with the Nicaraguan dictator José Santos Zelaya López, in the case of Durán, the attacks focused less on him and more on his political godfather Cleto González Víquez.

[7] Durán and Yglesias had agreed to support each other if the minimum required to win in the first round was not achieved (in which case the Congress appointed the president from among the most voted candidates).