ARGENTINA: Who Will Take the Hot Potato as Turmoil Continues?

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Dec 31 2001 (IPS) - The main parties in crisis-stricken Argentina reportedly reached agreement Monday that Peronist Senator Eduardo Duhalde will replace interim President Adolfo Rodríguez Saá, who resigned Sunday, to govern until 2003.

Leaders of the Radical Civic Union (UCR) party of Fernando de la Rúa, who was forced by rioting and protests to step down as president on Dec 20, as well as the leftist FREPASO, the junior partner in his governing coalition, have said they will back the designation of Duhalde to pull the country out of its present turmoil.

Duhalde, who is expected to be chosen by the joint assembly of the Chamber of Deputies and Senate scheduled for Tuesday afternoon, would serve out the rest of de la Rúa’s term, until December 2003, at the head of a government of national unity.

The governor of the province of Buenos Aires, Carlos Ruckauf, proposed the creation of a “government of national salvation” to rule until 2003, headed by Duhalde, a former governor of the same province – Argentina’s most populous – who was defeated by de la Rúa in the elections of 1999.

“Today the most logical thing is to choose an experienced man,” said Ruckauf, who added that Duhalde was the right man “due to his experience, and because he did a great job in the province.”

Top UCR leaders, Deputy Federico Storani and the head of the party’s lawmakers in the lower house of parliament, Deputy Horacio Pernasetti, said their party would back the naming of Duhalde as the head of a government of national unity.

“Common sense indicates that a president should be chosen to complete” de la Rúa’s mandate, said Storani.

Pernasetti said his party would have no problem voting for Duhalde as provisional president, if he was nominated in the legislative assembly by a majority of the members of Rodríguez Saá’s Justicialista (Peronist) Party.

However, he called for previous agreement to be reached regarding a “government programme of national unity,” based on a series of points to be hashed out by all of the parties, while Storani said the UCR was still debating whether it would take part in a government of national unity.

Buenos Aires Mayor Aníbal Ibarra, of the FREPASO, also called Monday for a Peronist president to be designated to serve until December 2003, arguing that in the wake of Rodríguez Saá’s resignation on Sunday, “Argentina could not withstand an electoral process.”

But currents within the ranks of the fractious Peronist Party continued to push for elections to be held on Mar 3, as agreed when Rodríguez Saá became caretaker president on Dec 24.

The powerful governor of the province of Cordoba, José Manuel de la Sota, and other Peronist leaders called for elections to be held “as early as possible.”

However, Storani said that “there’s total agreement that the legislative assembly should choose a president for two years…It would seem mad in the present climate to hold elections, because the interim government wouldn’t have the power to apply measures to pull us out of this crisis.”

Shortly after Rodríguez Saá resigned late Sunday, the president of the Senate, Ramón Puerta, followed suit. Puerta was next in line for the presidency, a post he held briefly after de la Rúa stepped down.

That means Rodríguez Saá technically remains president until Tuesday’s legislative assembly formally accepts his resignation and chooses a successor.

The second in line for the presidency is the head of the Chamber of Deputies, Eduardo Camaño, and the third would be Julio Nazareno, the president of the Supreme Court.

The members of the Supreme Court were among the targets of the protests that broke out again on Friday, after similar demonstrations as well as rioting and looting of supermarkets left 28 dead and brought the de la Rúa administration crashing down just 11 days ago.

The demonstrators also took aim against the interim cabinet set up by Rodríguez Saá, which they claimed was rife with corruption.

This once-rich Southern Cone country, Latin America’s third largest economy, is in its fourth year of recession, and one-third of its 36 million people have fallen below the poverty line.

People continued to line up outside banks Monday to withdraw sorely needed cash. Cash withdrawals were limited to 1,000 dollars a month by de la Rúa to curb a run on banks.

Security was beefed up in banks, shopping centres, public buildings and air, railway and bus terminals. The federal police, the national gendarmerie and the coast guard began to patrol Buenos Aires immediately after Rodríguez Saá resigned.

The Plaza de Mayo square outside the Casa Rosada – the presidential palace – was cleared of protesters at 3 AM Monday morning.

Deputy Leopoldo Moreau, an influential UCR lawmaker, warned that “Today we are millimetres away from a civil war.”

Announcing his resignation in a message to the nation late Sunday night, Rodríguez Saá complained of the “selfish, petty attitude” and greed for power that left him without support within his Peronist Party.

Rodríguez Saá, who governed the central province of San Luis for 18 years until becoming president for seven days, had been proposed by Peronist governors to run the country until elections were held on Mar 3.

But the power struggles among the Peronists, added to the country’s dire social and economic crisis, swiftly eroded his support base.

Rodríguez Saá’s resignation was triggered by the spontaneous protests that began Friday night. Thousands of people in Buenos Aires banged on pots and pans outside the Casa Rosada and Congress demanding the resignation of corrupt members of the cabinet as well as the entire Supreme Court.

One group of demonstrators even broke down the doors of Congress, smashing windows, setting fire to furniture and tossing sofas and statues of former presidents down the main outside staircase.

In his speech Sunday night, Rodríguez Saá detailed the steps he had taken in one week as president, and said he was called on to do in three months what had not been done in 30 years.

He also placed the blame on “the wolves roaming around, the lobbies, who did not understand the essence of today’s new times, and wanted to maintain the privileges of the old Argentina.

“I’m not going to be the president who gives continuity to that old Argentina, nor to repress the people. I meant to be the one who initiated change, and I am sure I have done that,” he added.

Rodríguez Saá suspended payments on Argentina’s 132 billion dollar foreign debt, leading to the largest default in history. He also announced the creation of a new currency, the ‘argentino’, which was to float alongside the peso, paving the way for an “orderly exit” from Argentina’s currency board system that has pegged the peso to the dollar for a decade.

In addition, he promised the creation of one million jobs in a country with 18.3 percent unemployment, said all back salaries and pensions would be paid, and ordered a reduction in the salaries of executive branch officials.

According to Rodríguez Saá, 230,000 jobs were created in his one week in office.

He also pointed out that during Friday’s protests outside the Casa Rosada there was no police repression like the brutal clashes that occurred on Dec 20, prior to de la Rúa’s resignation, when seven demonstrators were killed by police bullets.