Anger Over Economy Carries Peronist to Landslide Victory in Argentine Race

Carlos Saul Menem, a flamboyant populist promising a “productive revolution,” won the Argentine presidency in a landslide Sunday on the strength of public anger over the nation’s worst economic crisis in nearly a century.

The 58-year-old Menem trounced Eduardo Cesar Angeloz of President Raul Alfonsin’s ruling Radical party by a margin of about 49% to 38%, according to unofficial results of three-fourths of the ballots.

Angeloz, governor of Cordoba province, lost in nearly every district of the country and was fighting even to win his own province.

In capturing the presidency for the Peronist party for the first time since 1973, Menem successfully muted lingering fears of Peronism and turned the campaign into a vote on Alfonsin’s economic failings--inflation is surging at an annual rate of 3,000%, the Argentine currency has plummeted and workers’ buying power has disintegrated.

Turnout was about 85% of the 20 million eligible voters. Partial returns had Menem ahead with 6.1 million votes, compared to 4.7 million for Angeloz. The conservative Center Alliance of Alvaro Alsogaray had 7% of the vote--less than expected--with the rest split among minor candidates.

Will Control Legislature

The Peronists, who already control the Senate, also apparently won a majority in the lower house of Congress, giving Menem a friendly legislature for his plan to achieve a vaguely defined “productive revolution”--raising salaries, reactivating industry, reducing a huge deficit and tackling inflation.

The vote was regarded as a crucial step in the consolidation of democratic rule in Argentina, where six coups have broken the constitutional order since 1930. When Alfonsin’s successor takes office in December, it will be the first genuinely democratic transition of power from one elected president to another in 61 years.

“Today all Argentines were the winners,” said Alfonsin, whose election in 1983 ended a brutal seven-year military dictatorship and formed part of a trend toward restored civilian rule across the continent.

Thousands of Peronists poured into the streets of the capital to celebrate in a steady rain, pounding drums and chanting odes to Juan D. Peron, who founded the party in the mid-1940s.

Menem was virtually assured of a clear-cut electoral college majority, thus avoiding months of potentially bitter maneuvering for support before the electors’ meeting on Aug. 10 to choose the winner.

From his home in the small province of La Rioja, where he serves as governor, Menem said, “I’ve defeated an adversary, but I’ve regained a friend.”

Angeloz called Menem to concede defeat and congratulate him.

Menem said: “I have faith and hope that things are going to start to go better in this country.”

He quoted Juan Peron, saying, “To govern is to give work,” and added: “Here there will be no possibility of speculation, of usury. Let’s end this Argentina where those who do nothing live well and those who work every day of the year live badly.”

The constitution barred Alfonsin from seeking reelection. Despite widespread approval of the entrenchment of civil liberties during his six-year term, public disaffection is widespread over his economic failures. One of the world’s 10 wealthiest countries in the 1930, Argentina has lately fallen further into the ranks of the Third World, with its foreign debt soaring to nearly $60 billion.

The voting proceeded smoothly, with no complaints of irregularities. Argentine elections are regarded as among the fairest in Latin America, with observers from all parties overseeing every step of the process.

Menem, who spent five years in jail during the last dictatorship, said after casting his ballot: “The important thing is that the Argentine people can exercise the fundamental right to choose.”

Working-Class Base

The son of Syrian immigrants who converted from Islam to Catholicism, Menem galvanized the working-class base of the Peronist party, a social movement that defies ideological labels. An amateur race car driver and pilot who is often photographed with starlets, Menem avoided specifics on how he would right the foundering economy or on how far he would go in dismantling the state domination of the economy begun by Peron.

Menem emphasized the “renovation” of the Peronist party, formally known as the Justicialist Party, since the days when Peron dictated every decision. Menem helped engineer internal party reforms, including an open primary that he won in an upset last July, which he said ended the party’s authoritarian traditions.

With a sonorous voice and bushy sideburns reminiscent of 19th-Century provincial political bosses, Menem enthralled rallies with his appeal to “Follow me! To end the hunger of the poor children, and the sadness of the rich children! I will not defraud you!”

Still, uncertainty over Menem’s intentions and memories of the Peronists’ combative past combined to kept the number of undecided voters relatively high.

Peron ruled from 1946-55 with the help of his charismatic second wife, Eva (Evita) Peron, until he fell in a coup. He returned to office in 1973 and, upon his death less than a year later, was succeeded by his third wife and vice president, Maria Estela Peron. She was ousted in 1976 at a time of hyper-inflation, strikes and left-wing violence.

Angeloz, who promised to privatize deficit-ridden state-run enterprises and to modernize the economy, sought to portray Menem as a throwback to past Peronist reliance on the state to solve the nation’s ills.

The 57-year-old governor, a gruff-voiced career politician regarded as a capable if dour administrator, was nearly as critical of Radical party policies as he was of Peronism.

Alfonsin constantly faced conflict with the military over human rights abuses during the previous regime, and he suffered through three military rebellions in the past two years and a leftist guerrilla attack against a military base in January. Many analysts expect some sort of military amnesty in the months or years ahead to ease tensions.

Memory of Perons

The memory of Juan and Evita Peron was more than a sentimental factor for many voters. In the Villa Urquiza neighborhood of the capital, 74-year-old Juana Bottini de Rossini pointed to a graffiti-stained stone pedestal in a park across from the voting station and said, “That was a bust of Evita until they pulled it down after the 1955 coup.

“This barrio was founded by Peron, it was called Barrio Peron, and Evita designed this park. They provided houses for the poor. If Peron had stayed in power, there would be none of the slums that we have in Buenos Aires now.”

She said Peron had given the workers free vacations, social benefits and pensions.

“Now Menem is going to do the same for us,” she said.