Eduardo Bauzá, a lawyer, graduated from the Universidad de Mendoza. He started his political career in Mendoza Province. He was appointed to his first political office in 1973 in La Rioja Province as the secretary of development, under Governor Carlos Menem. Menem and Bauzá were deposed during the 1976 Argentine coup d'état, and he was detained by the National Reorganization Process a few months later. He was under arrest from May 1976 to April 1977. He resumed his political career in 1982 and helped establish the "Federalismo y liberación" () faction within the Justicialist Party (PJ), led by Menem. They ran for the primary elections to the 1983 Argentine general election, and lost to Ítalo Argentino Lúder. Bauzá also ran in the PJ primary election for governor elections and lost to Carlos Motta.