ARGENTINA: Political Crisis over Eventual Presidential Successor

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Nov 30 2001 (IPS) - The next in line for the presidency in crisis-stricken Argentina if anything happens to President Fernando de la Rúa is a member of the opposition ‘Justicialista’ (Peronist) Party, who was named head of the Senate Thursday.

Since Argentina currently has no vice-president, Ramón Puerta, who will become president of the Argentine Senate on Dec 10, will take the place of De la Rúa in case of temporary or definitive absence.

Puerta’s designation added a political dimension to Argentina’s severe economic crisis.

De la Rúa, who is rated positively by less than 15 percent of opinion poll respondents, has come under heavy criticism due to the weakness of his administration and to his failure to demonstrate a capacity for thinking on his toes and for pulling the country out of a nearly four-year recession.

Television and radio comedy shows invariably portray him as a hesitant, bumbling, disoriented and indecisive man.

Analysts see the naming of Puerta as just one more consequence of De la Rúa’s weakness.

The vice-presidency has stood empty since October 2000, when Carlos Alvarez, De la Rúa’s junior partner in the governing centre- left Alliance, resigned over the president’s failure to take action in a Senate bribery scandal.

That means the head of the Senate will take De la Rúa’s place when he travels abroad, and will replace the president if anything happens to him.

When the new legislature elected in October convenes on Dec 10, the Justicialista Party will hold 41 of the 72 seats in the Senate.

The spectre of the opposition finding itself in power without new elections if something were to happen to De la Rúa has sparked a crisis in the ranks of the ruling Alliance, especially given the president’s weakness and the country’s severe economic travails.

On several occasions, officials, and even the president himself, have had to refute rumours that De la Rúa had stepped down. A number of lawmakers and other political leaders have called for his resignation, while reforms of the law outlining the chain of command and designating the president’s successor in case of emergency are being discussed.

Some leaders of the ruling coalition and the opposition even believe that the mere designation of Puerta represents a defeat for the government, fuelling fears that the president might hand over power before the end of his term.

The situation has revived memories of the case of Raúl Alfonsín – the leader of the Radical Civic Union, like De la Rúa – who in June 1989, overwhelmed by hyperinflation and social unrest, handed the presidency over to Carlos Menem six months before the end of his term.

Menem governed for 10 years, until De la Rúa took office in December 1999.

De la Rúa said Thursday that according to parliamentary tradition, “the right thing” would be for the head of the Senate to be a legislator “of the same political stripe” as the president. However, he did not add his voice to the angry reaction by the leaders of his party to the Justicialista decision.

The only 20th century precedent to this situation occurred in 1919, when the vice-president’s death put an opposition politician, the head of the Senate, in line for the succession to President Hipólito Yrigoyen, also a member of the Radical Civic Union.

But the case of De la Rúa would be even more serious, because the vice-president, Alvarez, resigned less than one year after the government took office.

Alvarez’s resignation was the first major political crisis to shake the administration, and revealed a president who had real trouble making fast decisions.

The political significance of Puerta’s designation was amplified by criticism from close associates of De la Rúa, which only seemed to highlight the president’s difficulties in serving out the term to which he was elected.

The governor of the northern province of Chaco, Angel Rozas, who is also the president of the Radical Civic Union, said the naming of Puerta as president of the Senate was “an institutional coup,” and urged the opposition to calm its “thirst for power” until 2003, when the president’s term ends.

“A de facto vice-president of the nation has been named, which runs counter to the popular will expressed at the polls in 1999, when the people gave a mandate to the Alliance to govern until 2003,” said Rozas.

For his part, former president Alfonsín said the Justicialistas were committing “a serious strategic error” by accepting the post of Senate president – “an error that will only stir things up and bring more problems.”

On the other hand, Justicialista senators-elect like Jorge Yoma or Eduardo Duhalde said the situation should not be blown out of proportion.

According to Duhalde, who was defeated by De la Rúa in the elections of 1999, the opposition had no intention of “carrying out any coup, hurting the country’s governability, or co- governing.

“The Justicialista Party has demonstrated great prudence to avoid standing in the way of the performance of this government, which has been so erratic,” said Duhalde.

He admitted, however, that the naming of the president of the Senate “further weakens an already weak government.”