By Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES, Jan 4 2002 (IPS)

Argentina’s institutional crisis has shaken the traditional political parties, which have been contested by the citizens in the streets, and even before that, at the polls.

However, the efforts of political leaders to recuperate their authority by designating a new president who enjoys broad support may not reap fruit.

“If this doesn’t work, we’ll have a more profound renovation of politics,” said political analyst Rosendo Fraga with the Centre of Studies for a New Majority, a local think-tank.

“The survival of the two-party system that has dominated politics in Argentina since the middle of the 20th century depends” on the fate of President Eduardo Duhalde, he added.

Analysts reported Thursday that Duhalde had told his closest associates that if his administration was not doing well three months from now, he would call elections, without waiting for December 2003, the end of the term of Fernando de la Rúa, who resigned on Dec 20.

Fraga said the new president, who was designated Tuesday by a broad majority of lawmakers, is the last chance for the traditional way of doing politics to survive in Argentina without in-depth changes. “If he fails, 2003 could be the opportunity to make a break with the historic two-party system,” he added.

A “last-ditch” attempt to survive was the analyst’s explanation for the quick accord reached by Duhalde’s Justicialista (Peronist) Party and de la Rúa’s Radical Civic Union (UCR), the two parties that have alternated in power for decades, interpersed with de facto military regimes.

The parties agreed to vote for Duhalde and cancel the call for elections issued by Adolfo Rodríguez Saá in his brief seven days in the presidency.

Due to an unprecedented economic, social, political and institutional crisis, Argentina has had five presidents in two weeks, after de la Rúa was forced out by a wave of looting of supermarkets, rioting and protests.

The country is in its fourth year of recession, unemployment stands at over 18 percent, and 40 percent of the population of 36 million has fallen into poverty.

Opinion polls indicated that if elections for a president to serve out de la Rúa’s term were held on Mar 3 as originally scheduled, spoiled and blank ballots would have carried the day.

Edith Fuksman, a 59-year-old phono-audiologist, told IPS that she used to vote for the UCR, until the October legislative elections, when she cast a blank ballot to protest the de la Rúa administration.

But this time around, if the Mar 3 elections had taken place, she would have voted for the leftist Trotskyists, she said.

She added that Trotskyist Deputy Luis Zamora – who took 10 percent of the votes in the capital – best interpreted the attitude of protesters fed up with the traditional political class when he criticised the diets of lawmakers, their wheeling-and- dealing, and their incapacity.

Thursday’s designation of the new cabinet, which only includes one UCR minister – who was not even suggested by his own party – and has few truly prestigious leaders, was a first shaky step taken by a new administration that is being watched closely by the public.

Although Duhalde tried to convince influential legislators and governors to join him, most of them turned down his offer, many of them for fear of taking part in a failed experiment.

“They are fighting over the shreds of the old system,” wrote columnist Joaquín Morales Solá in the Buenos Aires newspaper La Nacion.

According to a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report to be released in March, 95 percent of Argentines polled in a broad survey believe it is necessary to “improve the quality of politics” in their country.

The October legislative elections revealed that voters were disgusted with the lack of solutions for their problems, and that they did not feel represented by their political leaders. However, de la Rúa paid no heed to the message sent by the electorate.

Despite the fact that the vote is compulsory in Argentina, 23 percent of voters failed to turn out in October, while 15 percent cast blank or spoiled ballots, in response to a spontaneous campaign that called on voters to pencil in the names of historic figures or comic book characters, as a sign of protest against the system.

Former Peronist president Carlos Menem (1989-99) took advantage of the apparent apathy of voters, and suggested – after meeting with de la Rúa, following his release from the house arrest he was put under in connection with an arms smuggling scandal – doing away with the mandatory vote.

In some districts, the proportion of blank and spoiled ballots was larger than the share taken by any party. And most questions put to organisations set up to inform the population on how to vote referred to the consequences that would be faced by those who abstained.

One of the districts in which the so-called “voto bronca” (vote of anger) won out was the capital, the second largest district in terms of the number of voters, and the scene of spontaneous “cacerolazos” (pot and pan banging) street demonstrations over the past two weeks – in which many of those who cast spoiled ballots have undoubtedly taken part.

“Out with the politicians!” was the most frequently heard slogan. When asked what they were protesting against, many demonstrators specifically clarified that they were not opposed to the democratic system nor to the role politics plays in such a system.

What they were lashing out against was the stereotype of the dishonest, corrupt politician, who seeks personal enrichment and political power, and breaks campaign pledges and negotiates at the expense of the interests of the population just to stay in office.

“They cheated us again,” complained one woman who took part in the “cacerolazo” that forced economy minister Domingo Cavallo and later de la Rúa himself to step down. She took to the streets again to protest against the government of Peronist caretaker president Rodriguez Saá.

Rejection of the traditional two-party system was already expressed in December, prior to the government’s collapse, but in another context, and it went unnoticed in the hubbub of the growing unrest.

The University Federation of Buenos Aires, which represents public university students, was governed since 1983 by Franja Morada, a group with ties to the UCR. But last month, an alliance of centrist parties and independent student representatives snatched away the presidency.

According to Fraga, the Argentine political class has undergone three major historical renovations: in the 19th century; in 1916, when the UCR, the party of the growing middle class, rose to power; and in 1946, when the Justicialista movement emerged, created and led by three-time president Juan Perón.

The problem is that unlike the earlier episodes, no one knows today just who would reap the fruits of a change of such magnitude.

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