Hermes Juan Binner (June 5, 1943 − June 26, 2020) was an Argentine physician and a politician. He was Governor of Santa Fe from 2007 to 2011. Binner was the first Socialist to become the governor of an Argentine province, and the first non-Peronist to rule Santa Fe since 1983. Binner was previously a Deputy of the Civic and Social Progressive Front, a Santa Fe party coalition including the Socialist Party, the Radical Civic Union and other left-wing parties, since the parliamentary elections of October 23, 2005. Biography Education and background Binner was born and raised in Rafaela, Santa Fe Province, to a Swiss Argentine family. He attended primary school at St. Joseph's College, and then attended high school at the Rafaela National College, where he began his political activity through participation in the Student Center. At the time (1958) the need for public free non-religious education was being hotly debated in Argentina. Binner moved to Rosario to study Medicine at the Universidad Nacional de Rosario. At 18 he became affiliated with the Argentine Socialist Party and continued to exercise an intense political activity, both as a member of the Student Center and at the institutional level in the Faculty of Medicine. After the 1966 coup d'état, he participated in the movements resisting the military dictatorship of General Juan Carlos Onganía, against a background of political and ideological persecution. He graduated in 1970 and continued his militant activism as a Graduate Council Member at the University, as well as working as a union member at the Rosario Medical Association and the Physicians' College. Political trajectory Guillermo Estévez Boero and Binner co-founded the Popular Socialist Party (Partido Socialist Popular, PSP) in Buenos Aires on April 23, 1972, a merger of the Argentine Socialist Party (PSA) with other left-wing groups. He continued exercising his profession, taking up specialties in anesthesiology and occupational medicine, and starting studies in the field of public health. On the last account he obtained the posts of Sub-Director and Director of public hospitals. Following the 1989 economic crisis that led to the early handover of power by President Raúl Alfonsín to President-elect Carlos Menem, the UCR Mayor of Rosario Horacio Usandizaga resigned in protest, forcing anticipated municipal elections to be held. The Socialist Héctor Cavallero was elected, and he appointed Binner to the office of Public Health Secretary. After Cavallero's term, in 1993, Binner was elected concejal (member