POLITICS-ARGENTINA: No Strong Potential Candidate on Horizon

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, May 28 2002 (IPS) - A few of the political leaders shaping up as potential successors to Argentina’s caretaker President Eduardo Duhalde, if the majority of poll respondents get their way and early elections are held, did not expect their newfound popularity.

However, no single politician was given over 20 percent support in the latest polls asking respondents who they would vote for, or to rate the possible candidates according to their image. The ruling Justice (Peronist) Party, for example, is deeply divided, with several leaders vying for power.

The biggest surprise, even for himself, would be a victory for socialist lawmaker Luis Zamora, who is used to doing politics at the margins of the system, but whose years of criticism of political leaders who act “behind the backs” of the citizens have brought him unexpected popularity.

Zamora, a rising star of television talk shows, does not know what he would do if he were elected president. “I don’t think I would be able to give off the image of a candidate who is going to change things, because the changes must be brought about by the people, who only need someone to help implement them,” he told IPS.

In the latest poll by the Equis polling firm, 13.5 percent of those interviewed in the greater Buenos Aires, which is home to nearly 32 percent of Argentina’s population of 36 million, said they would vote for Zamora if he were to run in early elections.

In the 1990s, Zamora held a seat in parliament as a Trotskyist party lawmaker. When his term was up, he refused a special pension to which he was entitled, and returned to his career as a lawyer, selling books in a street stall on the side. In 2001, friends persuaded him to run for Congress again, and he took 10 percent of the votes in the capital.

The results of another poll released this month, carried out by the Catterberg y Asociados firm, showed centre-left deputy Elisa Carrió in the lead in much of the country, with the support of 18 percent of those asked who they would vote for.

Carrió, who founded the new Argentines for a Republic of Equals movement, is a former member of the Radical Civic Union, the senior partner in the Alliance that ruled under Fernando de la Rúa, who was forced to resign as president in December.

But her denunciations of corruption and criticism of the coalition made her defect to the opposition in 2001.

The poll by Catterberg y Asociados shows that after Carrió, the politicians with the strongest ratings are Zamora in second place and two Justice Party leaders sharing third place: the governor of the central province of Santa Fe, Carlos Reutemann, and a former governor of the central province of San Luis, Adolfo Rodríguez Saá, who held the post of transitional president for one week after de la Rúa stepped down.

“Among the Peronists, Reutemann stands the best chance of winning,” said pollster Rosendo Fraga. The governor of Santa Fe, who 8.2 percent of those interviewed by Equis say they would vote for, is one of the possible Peronist contenders for the presidency.

Meanwhile, 56 percent of those surveyed by Catterberg y Asociados said they would like early elections to be called – 20 percent more than in January, when Duhalde was designated by parliament to finish out de la Rúa’s term, which ends in 2003.

Ninety percent of those interviewed in that poll and 82 percent of respondents to a Gallup survey carried out this month said they wanted all publicly elected posts, and not just the presidency, to come up for election in 2003.

But none of the possible candidates to succeed Duhalde, not even the most popular leaders, have more than 20 percent support in the polls, and analysts warn that any new president to emerge from early elections would have an extremely weak mandate.

However, if the Justice Party closes ranks behind a single candidate, or if the party divides before elections are called, that situation would change.

The possible adoption of an electoral system that allows parties to field several presidential candidates, with all of the votes taken by the party going in the end to the most-voted candidate, would also modify things.

Besides Reutemann and Rodríguez Saá, other Justice Party leaders with a certain level of support in the polls are the governor of the southern province of Santa Cruz, Néstor Kirchner, and the governor of the central province of Córdoba, José Manuel de la Sota.

Former president Carlos Menem (1989-99) also had the support of 2.7 percent of those surveyed by Equis. However, Menem could only return if Duhalde serves out de la Rúa’s term, which ends in September 2003.

When Congress appointed Duhalde caretaker president on Jan 1, the legislators and provincial governors agreed that the critical social, economic and political circumstances stood in the way of calling early elections.

But the crisis did not let up, and the president’s power quickly eroded. He himself recently told opposition leaders that he is “tired of governing,” and wants to be replaced.

At the same time, the entire political class has suffered a steep loss of prestige, leading to unanticipated prominence and popularity for Zamora, who enjoys the best image of any politician, according to the Equis poll that asked respondents about their opinions of the images of political leaders, in which Carrió was rated second and Reutemann third.

Carrió noted this month that the number of people who said they would vote for her or for Zamora, combined with a similar proportion of undecideds, adds up to over 50 percent.

But Zamora is not interested in an electoral alliance with any leader who has emerged from the traditional parties, like Carrío.

The socialist lawmaker explained that his party, Self- Determination and Liberty, wants to build an alternative movement with broad popular participation.

Zamora is the only politician accepted as just another citizen at the neighbourhood assemblies that have cropped up since de la Rúa was toppled.

The legislator’s ideas are as radical as ever, but his followers are no longer limited to a small minority of university students and militant members of leftist parties.

Men and women who have fallen into poverty from comfortable middle-class lifestyles – nearly half of the population of this once-rich nation has slipped below the poverty line – as well as pensioners and college graduates have begun to express respect for Zamora’s coherence, integrity and rejection of the traditional way of doing politics.

People who have voted for the Radical Civic Union their entire lives or who more recently backed the centre-left Alliance are today tempted to vote for Zamora. “I think he’s great, because he’s honest and tells the truth,” Edith Fuksman, a 60-year-old phonoaudiologist who voted for de la Rúa in the last elections, told IPS.

Zamora wants Argentina to free itself from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), reform the institutions of government, and confront “the barbarism of capitalism” based on a deeper integration with the rest of Latin America.

Zamora is not interested in alliances, and prefers to build a grassroots movement, regardless of how he fares in the elections.

Carrió, on the other hand, believes capitalism can be given a more human face, relations with the IMF should be maintained, and the people, not the institutions, must change.

Within the Justice Party, the difference between Reutemann and the rest of the potential candidates is a question of style.

According to Fraga, the governor of Santa Fe is considered “the most realistic” possible contender for the presidency, although he does not awaken great enthusiasm. His cautious style brings too many memories of the slow, mild-mannered, indecisive de la Rúa, the analyst noted.

But “for the business community, Reutemann represents the predictable. Carrió, on the other hand, is like Lula in Brazil,” said Fraga, referring to the leftist Workers’ Party candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the front-runner in the polls for Brazil’s October elections.