ARGENTINA-POLITICS: Menem’s Seven-Year Itch

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

ANALYSIS - Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Aug 16 1996 (IPS) - Argentine President Carlos Menem, who bareley scraped back into power in elections 15 months now faces the the greatest testing time of his seven years in office, according to political analysts.

Economic and social trends, as well as political forces, are weighing heavily on Menem who managed re-election with only 50 percent of the votes cast.

Political analyst Rosenda Punda observed recently that in the United States, where a president can stay in power eight years, the seventh year “is the one when things go into decline.”

When Menem took office in 1989, Argentine presidential terms lasted six years. but 18 months before his term ended, a successful campaign for constitutional reform allowed an extension and Menem should now remain in power until 1999.

Menem’s popularity, however, is faltering along with the stability of the country and he must address the present climate of “social exhaustion” which has allowed the unions to make great inroads into political affairs, observers said.

They pointed to the fact that Argentina’s volatile economy is not setting well with the public and only last week an opinion poll showed that nearly forty percent of voters would rather go on strike against economic adjustment and unemployment, which is at 17.1 percent, rather than support Menem’s plans for change.

Menem received an only 18 percent approval rating in a recent poll by the Center for Studies for a New Majority. The Sofres- Ibope organization rated him at only 14.4 percent.

Menem’s slowly draining support threatens his credibility as a leader to maintain the social contract which has kept him in power since 1989.

“If Menemism is no longer capable of bringing in the votes to sustain the present model of economic power, why should we support it?,” wondered political commentaor Carlos Eichelbaum, writing on Wednesday , two days after Menem proposed the most severe package of economic restraints in recent times.

The General Worker’s Federation (CGT) has its eye on plans to break the social contract as, being a supporter of the ruling Judicial Party, it has enjoyed “its own” government.

If they quit the Judicialist ranks, union leaders expect to gain power by distancing themselves from the government and Menem’s new economic team drawn from the brightest Argentine graduates of the University of Chicago’s neoliberal economics department.

Ramon “Palito” Ortega, the ex-governor of Tucuman province, agrees that distancing oneself from the Judicial Party is a good idea, in spite of the fact he plans to run for president in 1999.

“I can’t influence the plan with my opinion or participation, yet I’m supposed to show my face to support an economic plan which is a disaster. It’s a sinking ship, and I’m leaving,” said Ortega – once a singer who wrote a song called “Happiness.”

Three other disillusioned Judicialists have also been in the news lately. Former Senator Octavio Bordon, who quit the party and founded the center-left Solidarity National Front, has now broken with the front and is looking for opposition allies.

Gustavo Beliz, a Menem ex-minister who left the Judicialists this year to form his own party ran for the office of Mayor of Buonos Aires in this year’s municipal elections. He received 14 percent of the vote, not so bad considering that the party he left gathered only 18 percent.

The third former Judicialist member, Domingo Cavallo – former minister of Economy and the father of Menem’s economic model – is keeping a low profile , apprently waiting until the market have accepted his disappearance from office, before returning to the political stage.

While the uneasy political and economic situation continues, charges of corruption leveled one after the other inside and outside parliament have further contributed to a mounting sense of insecurity, observers opined. During the last big strike, corruption was the issue that most set passions ablaze in addition to unemployment and economic woes, which surprised government stategists.

Legislators from the ruling party, who occupy both houses of the parliament, have agreed to continue their support for Menem – particularly with more elections due next year.

In 1987, then-President Raul Alfonsin of the Radical Civic Union underwent a fatal blow during legislative elections that forced his resignation 16 months before his term was due to end. It was at that time that Menem succeeded to the Presidency.

In 1997, 10 years after that debacle, parliamentary elections will be held under similar circumstances, political observers noted