ARGENTINA: Menem Wins First Round, but Runoff Victory Unlikely

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Apr 28 2003 (IPS) - Two candidates from the ruling Justicialista (Peronist) Party, whose political platforms are a study in contrasts, will meet in the presidential runoff elections slated for May 18. But it already appears that the winner of the first round, former president Carlos Menem has little chance of winning.

In Sunday’s balloting, Menem, who served two consecutive terms in the presidency (1989-1999), received 24.3 percent of the vote, while Néstor Kirchner, governor of Santa Cruz province, came in second place with 21.9 percent, with nearly 99 percent of the ballot boxes officially counted.

Nevertheless, the favourite for the runoff next month is Kirchner.

Menem is seen as a right-winger, and his support base represents Argentina’s social extremes – the very poor and the very rich. Although Kirchner, too, is a Peronist, he is considered centre-left, and promises to rebuild the country’s once large middle class.

Menem has laid out a neo-liberal economic programme, in alignment with the United States, giving priority to the Washington-promoted Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) over Mercosur (Southern Common Market), which was founded in 1991 with neighbours Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.

And it expected that Menem would follow – to the letter – the International Monetary Fund’s recommendations for fiscal adjustment and debt payment, as well as promoting tax cuts and trade liberalisation.

Kirchner, backed by caretaker President Eduardo Duhalde, stepped forward in the last weeks of the electoral campaign as the candidate of continuity for the current administration’s economic reactivation plan, and said that if he wins he will keep finance minister Roberto Lavagna – widely credited for stabilising Argentina’s chaotic economy – in that post.

The plan is based on support for local production, both for the domestic market and for export.

The Santa Cruz governor has promised a policy to improve public security, but one that also respect individual freedoms.

Menem, meanwhile, announced that he would be ready to put army troops on Argentine streets.

The former president’s reputation has been sullied by corruption scandals, costing him an indictment that had him under house arrest for more than five months. Kirchner enjoys a reputation of honesty.

Based on surveys conducted even before the first round elections took place Sunday, nine polling firms found that Menem would lose against any of his possible rivals in the runoff vote.

Despite a solid foundation of support, Menem is the political leader with the highest negative rating among the Argentine electorate.

The Equis consultancy reported that 63.5 percent of poll respondents last week said that they would "never" vote for a ticket with the former president and his running mate Juan Carlos Romero.

Artemio López, a sociologist with Equis, told IPS that according to its studies prior to the first round, Kirchner would defeat Menem in the second round, with 53 percent to 32 percent of the vote, respectively.

"We are going to go from a very fragmented election in the first round to a very polarised election in the second," he predicted. The vote is obligatory in Argentina.

Menem was a long way from obtaining the 45 percent of the vote necessary to avoid a runoff (or 40 percent with a 10-point lead over the second place candidate), and has already begun to reach out to other political sectors for support on May 18 – as Kirchner is also doing.

The strategy of both appears to be aimed at garnering direct support from voters, not from the parties’ leadership, which have fallen into disgrace as far as the public is concerned.

And these leaders of parties that are no longer in the running are themselves showing reticence to make any deals, opting to let their members decide at the runoff ballot box.

After Menem and Kirchner, coming in third in Sunday’s elections was former economy minister Ricardo López Murphy, of the centre- right Federal Movement to Rebuild, with 16.3 percent of the vote, and in fourth, lawmaker Elisa Carrió, of the centre-left Party for a Republic of Equals, with 14.15 percent.

A very close fifth was the third Peronist candidate, Adolfo Rodríguez Saá, with 14.12 of the vote.

For the first time since the Justicialista Party was founded in the middle of the last century, it was unable to overcome internal disputes in order to hold primary elections, thus Menem, Kirchner and Rodríguez Saá competed as candidates of different party factions.

Just hours after the balloting ended Sunday, Menem stated that "López Murphy and Rodríguez Saá ran a magnificent race," in an apparent attempt to woo their supporters for the runoff.

Kirchner, meanwhile, applauded Carrió for her electoral achievement with a party less than two years old and for remaining steadfast in her promise not to accept campaign donations from the business community.

"The votes are of the people, not of the political leaders," commented the lawmaker, but she did say that in the runoff she will vote "against Menem".

Later, Carrió’s campaign chief, Rafael Romá, stated that the party’s position is to "not abstain" from the runoff vote and to not support Menem.

"We are going to give support to Kirchner, but without a pledge for a coalition or a government post. We will do it in exchange for nothing because we want to remain in the opposition," he said.

Carrió supporters are already saying in polls and in radio call- in shows that they will vote for Kirchner on May 18.

López Murphy said Sunday night that his party, created less than a year ago, "does not own the vote of anyone," and his running mate Ricardo Gómez Diez stated that their supporters were free to make their own decision in the runoff election.

But many of the Argentines who voted for López Murphy, like those who voted for Carrió, say they will vote for Kirchner because under no circumstances do they want to see Menem return to the presidency.