Quintanilla soon set about reversing course on the more radical elements of the previous governments and returning the country to the conservative status quo prior to the Chaco War.

Though Quintanilla attempted to exercise a longer government, the prolonged indecision to call elections was met by opposition from the traditional political parties which sought to reassert themselves for the first time since the coup d'état which deposed them in 1936.

"[2] Finally, a group of representatives from the Liberal (PL), Genuine Republican (PRG), and Socialist Republican (PRG), parties addressed President Quintanilla with the warning that "Deferring for a longer time, without valid reasons, [...] the call for direct elections, will lead public opinion to the conviction that their participation in the electoral plebiscite will only serve to consolidate and legalize public powers [...] and that, therefore, will not be the authentic expression of the popular will.

These young officers presented as their presidential candidate General Bernardino Bilbao Rioja, the new commander-in-chief of the army who represented the Military Socialist ideology of Toro and the deceased Busch.

One of the primary sociologists and Marxist theorists in Bolivia, Arze had just that year returned from exile in Chile, having proven too far left even for the Military Socialist regime of David Toro which deported him in September 1936.

[8] Given the suppression of the electoral opposition, Peñaranda and the Concordance coalition won the 10 March elections easily with a popular vote margin of 85.99% to Arze's 11.32% and just 2.69% in favor of Bilbao.