Argentine President-Elect Agrees to Take Office Early, on June 30

Argentina’s president-elect, Carlos Saul Menem, said Tuesday that he will take office June 30, the date that Raul Alfonsin intends to resign because of that nation’s economic crisis.

Earlier, there were indications that Menem might not step into the office five months early, as Alfonsin proposed. But on Tuesday, Menem told a news conference in La Rioja province, of which he is governor, that “we are willing, totally willing, to assume the direction of the Argentine republic on that date.”

On Monday night, Alfonsin had said in a nationally broadcast speech that he lacks the political support to manage the crisis and that he will leave office at the end of the month. Shortly afterward, Menem called the statement “surprising,” and an aide said June 30 was too soon for him to take office.

Menem’s statement Tuesday appeared to resolve an impasse that began when his Peronist party defeated Alfonsin’s Radical Civic Union in national elections May 14, seven months before the Dec. 10 inauguration date stipulated in the constitution.

The Peronists and Radical Civic Union tried for weeks to reach an accord on an early transition, against a backdrop of inflation that nearly doubled prices every month, a growing budget deficit, a nearly worthless currency, record interest rates and rising unemployment.

At least 14 people were killed and dozens seriously injured in food riots and looting that began the last week of May.