ARGENTINA: Duhalde Leaving Gov’t Behind- and Perhaps Power

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, May 23 2003 (IPS) - Argentina’s outgoing President Eduardo Duhalde says he wants to be remembered merely as a ”pilot” who helped Argentina weather one of its worst storms ever, and that he will now turn to writing and teaching.

But many Argentines are wondering if he will really be satisfied with a quiet retirement at the age of 61, or if he will attempt to become the ”power behind the throne” after president- elect Néstor Kirchner takes office on Sunday.

Duhalde found himself catapulted into the pilot seat in the midst of the worst crisis in Argentine history, faced severe turbulence for 17 months, and managed to avoid a crash landing.

The caretaker president also helped bring about the defeat of his long-standing rival, former president Carlos Menem (1989- 1999), and on Sunday he will hand over the reins to his chosen successor.

Menem dropped out of the second round of elections when the polls showed that Kirchner would take at least 70 percent of the vote, and that a majority of poll respondents said their main motivation in backing Kirchner was to make sure Menem was not reelected.

All three – Menem, Kirchner and Duhalde – belong to the governing Justicialista (Peronist) Party, which was unable to agree on a single candidate last year.

Due to Menem’s withdrawal, Kirchner will enter office with a mere 22 percent of the vote, the share he took in the first round of elections.

A majority of those interviwed by pollsters believe the incoming president’s weak mandate will keep him beholden to Duhalde.

In a survey by Opinión Pública, Servicios y Mercado, a local polling firm, 64 percent of respondents said Duhalde was ”the main beneficiary” of Menem’s decision to pull out of the race, because the weakened Kirchner would have to ”repay” the strong support he received from the outgoing president.

Duhalde’s main power base is the province of Buenos Aires – the country’s most populous – where mayors who are faithful to him threw their decisive support behind Kirchner.

But the interim president says he will not interfere, and praised the cabinet announced this week by Kirchner.

He also said that he would not run again for any post in the government or in the Justicialista Party: ”We must open the doors to young leaders, for government posts as well as positions in the party.”

However, Duhalde did not rule out the possibility of seeking a seat in the Senate again sometime in the future.

For now, he plans to travel to Brazil and then perhaps Uruguay, setting off on his trip this very Sunday. He said he would dedicate himself to writing, lecturing at universities, and ”contributing his experience.”

Duhalde described Kirchner as a ”rebel with a healthy kind of rebelliousness” and a frank, up-front way of saying what he thinks. He also predicted that Kirchner stood a strong chance of being reelected.

”I believe we will have Kirchner for eight years” – two successive four-year terms – he said.

Sociologist and public opinion expert Gerardo Adrogué told IPS that although Duhalde was leaving the government with ”a favourable balance,” he was fully aware that, like Menem, he forms part of ”the old political guard,” characterised by a territorial power base, clientelism, and back-room pacts between powerful elites.

But ”Unlike Menem, who did not want to step off the stage until the very end, Duhalde had the advantage of being one of the first to understand the terrible public image suffered by Argentina’s political leaderhip, even before the resignation of (former president Fernando) de la Rúa in 2001,” said the analyst.

In Adrogué’s view, Duhalde guaranteed governance in the midst of a profound crisis, came up with successful solutions to put an end to the economic turmoil, and is very aware of his own limitations.

”I don’t think he will throw a wrench into the works. On the contrary, he’s even leaving the country for a while,” said Adrogué.

Duhalde was born and launched his political career in the town of Lomas de Zamora in the province of Buenos Aires, where he was elected mayor for the first time in 1974. He went on to represent the province in the lower house of Congress, and was elected vice- president in 1989, as Menem’s running-mate.

In 1991 he was elected governor of the province of Buenos Aires. He hoped to run for president in 1995, but Menem pushed through a constitutional reform that made it possible for presidents to serve two consecutive terms, and was nominated as the Peronists’ candidate, after which he was reelected.

That distanced Duhalde from his one-time mentor, and the rivalry between them grew over the years until they ended up arch enemies.

A major clash came when Menem made an unsuccessful attempt in 1999 to be declared eligible for standing for a third consecutive mandate by means of a controversial interpretation of the constitutional reform that he himself had promoted, and which does not allow three successive terms.

Duhalde challenged Menem to hold a referendum, and the former president desisted, but not without bitterness. That year, Duhalde ran for the presidency and was defeated by de la Rúa, who headed a centre-left alliance.

But a profound economic crisis and massive street protests and looting precipitated the downfall of de la Rúa, who stepped down halfway through his term. His immediate successor, Adolfo Rodríguez Saá, was also forced out after just over a week in office, and the legislature designated Duhalde to complete de la Rúa’s mandate.

”I was on the verge of losing my psychological equilibrium, I was taking sleeping pills at night, and I was really afraid that the country would slip out of my hands,” he confessed this week, recalling the most critical moments of his 17 months in office, as he tried to pull Latin America’s number three economy out of its economic, social and political collapse.

One of the first measures Duhalde took was to devalue the peso, which had been pegged to the dollar for over 10 years under a currency board system. The peso lost over 70 percent of its value, prices began climbing, more than half of the population fell into poverty, unemployment soared and social unrest reigned.

But things began to calm down after Roberto Lavagna was appointed economy minister in April 2002. In his campaign, Kirchner announced that he would keep Lavagna on.

The devaluation and inflation were curbed, a work-fare scheme for unemployed heads of household was launched, and a new, so-far successful approach was taken in negotiations of the country’s bulky foreign debt.

In December 2001, Argentina defaulted on what it owed to private creditors. In 2002, Lavagna finally won a ”transitional financial support” package reprogramming the country’s payments to the multilateral lending institutions through August of this year, to provide relief until the new government was in office.

But after two demonstrators were killed by police in a harsh crackdown of a protest by the unemployed movement, Duhalde found himself looking into the abyss once again, and announced early elections, which would be held in May instead of December this year. He then began to seek a successor.

”Menem should have done that – chosen an heir and given him his support. But he preferred to stand as a candidate himself, and he did not understand that his time was up,” Marcos Novaro, a sociology professor at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, told IPS.

The governor of the northern province of Santa Fe, Carlos Reutemann, declined Duhalde’s offer, and the governor of the neighbouring province of Cordoba, José Manuel de la Sota, did not look promising in the polls.

Only then did Kirchner, governor of the southern province of Santa Cruz, emerge as an option, despite the fact that he had been an outspoken critic of Duhalde’s brief time in office.

”Kirchner has to show now that he has the skill to build a new leadership within the Justicialista Party, and that he can win the support of the party’s now deeply divided leadership,” said Adrogué.