By 1973, the army seemed to have recognized that its efforts to engineer some sort of national unity had failed. The economy continued to splutter into recession, guerrilla violence was spreading and the incidence of military repression and torture was rising. Army leader, General Lanusse, decided to risk calling an election, and in an attempt to heal the long-standing national divide, permitted the Peronist party - but not Perón himself - to stand. Perón, then living in Spain, nominated a proxy candidate, Héctor Cámpora , to stand in his place. Cámpora emerged victorious, but resigned almost immediately, which forced a reluctant military to allow Perón himself to return to stand in new elections.

By this time, Perón had come to represent all things to all men. Radical left-wing Montoneros saw themselves as true Peronists - the natural upholders of the type of Peronism that championed the rights of the descamisados and freedom from imperialist domination. Likewise, conservative landed groups saw him as a symbol of stability in the face of anarchy. Any illusion that Perón was going to be the cure-all balm for the nation's ills dissipated before touchdown at Ezeiza international airport. Like a group of unsuspecting wives assembled to greet a secret polygamist, his welcoming party dissolved into a violent melee, with rival groups in the crowd of 500,000 shooting at each other. No one is sure just how many people were killed in the melee, though the total is thought to be in three figures rather than the official figure of 25.

As his running mate, Perón chose a former actress from Venezuela - his third wife, María Estela Martínez de Perón, commonly known as Isabelita .

He was now 78, and his health was failing. Though he won the elections with ease, his third term was to last less than nine months, ending with his death in July 1974. Power devolved to Isabelita, who thus became the world's first woman premier. Isabel Perón managed to make a bitterly divided nation agree on at least one thing: that her regime was a catastrophic failure. Rudderless, out of her depth as regards policy, and with no bedrock of support, the unelected Isabelita clung increasingly desperately to the advice of José López Rega, a shadowy figure who became compared to Rasputin. Rega's prime notoriety stems from having founded the feared right-wing death squads (the Triple "A", or Alianza Argentina Anticomunista) that targeted left-wing intellectuals and guerrilla sympathizers. The only boom industry, it seemed, was corruption in government, and with hyperinflation and spiralling violence, the country was gripped by paralysis.