Argentine Electorate Looks Beyond the Peronists for Change

Smoke rises from crop fires in the afternoon heat, drifting across an abject rural landscape that seems a world away from the cosmopolitan capital governed by Buenos Aires Mayor Fernando de la Rua.

Argentina’s remote northern province of Formosa did not fare well during a decade of change that brought blessings and curses: growth and unemployment, modernity and corruption. Places like Formosa, one of the nation’s poorest and most backward regions, are expected to play a key role in electing De la Rua president of Argentina in elections Sunday.

The desolate fields seen through the windows of the sport-utility vehicle carrying De la Rua probably would inspire other Argentine politicians, operatic orators in a nation of fast-talkers, to heights of agitated rhetoric. Not this politician. De la Rua stares straight ahead in the front passenger seat and speaks in dry tones about what Argentines want.

“Our growth was not equitably distributed,” the candidate says. “We lack a social policy for issues such as education, health and fighting poverty.

“My program is economic growth with social development, growth that creates jobs for all, effective programs to confront the poverty and exclusion that resulted from two causes: Globalization produced them, and the social neglect of the government aggravated them,” said De la Rua, 62.

He has based his career and candidacy on an image of austerity and solemnity. His center-left Alliance party seems likely to wrest control from the ruling Justicialist Party, known as the Peronists, after a decade dominated by President Carlos Menem. Polls show De la Rua well ahead of Eduardo Duhalde, 58, governor of Buenos Aires province and an old-school boss of a Peronist political machine weakened by internal battles.

Confident that Menem’s free-market reforms are irreversible, Argentines want to replace the outgoing president’s hyperactive flamboyance with a leader perceived as low-key and honest, according to pollsters.

De la Rua’s campaign has built an image of solidity: In one television ad, he walked with a platoon of actors carrying machine guns and dressed in black commando uniforms, rebuffing the notion that his party is soft on crime. In another ad, he described his reputation for dullness as a virtue after years of government scandal and ostentation.

“People want a change, and De la Rua inspires confidence,” said Manuel Mora y Araujo, a political consultant.

Economic Issues

Although they live in one of Latin America’s strongest democracies, Argentines want change because the “dullness” of First World order and prosperity remains far off, political commentator Mariano Grondona wrote recently.

“We are no longer Venezuela,” Grondona said. “But we are not yet Holland.”

Latin America’s economic slump has slowed the region’s third-largest economy, which boomed in the early 1990s after a concerted attack on inflation and reforms of a once-bloated public sector. Argentines worry about unemployment (at 14.5% after hitting 18% three years ago), corruption and street crime, problems seen as the dark side of modernization.

During his recent campaign swing through Formosa, De la Rua wore an unassuming suede jacket--now his trademark--as he walked along the bank of a river that divides the province from the impoverished nation of Paraguay.

The mayor reminded his supporters that, as a federal legislator, he authored a law defending indigenous peoples, who are still a presence in the Argentine interior. He also takes credit for balancing the municipal budget and making city hall more efficient.

Asked about the International Monetary Fund, which is seen by many Latin Americans as an imperious force whose demands for fiscal restraint impose hardship on workers, De la Rua responded laconically.

“I am going to be the one who implements my program,” he said. “No one is going to impose it on me.”

The leaders of the Alliance--a coalition of De la Rua’s social-democrat Radical Civic Union and the leftist Frepaso party--apparently have convinced Argentines that they care about the man on the street. It is illustrative that the popularity of former President Raul Alfonsin, the Alliance’s elder statesman, has rebounded. Until recently, voters associated Alfonsin more with the chaotic hyperinflation that ended his presidency in 1989 than his role in restoring democracy in 1983.

Nonetheless, the electorate has not exactly leaped to the left. The center-right Peronists have won governorships of major provinces in past months and are fighting hard to retain Buenos Aires province, home to 40% of the electorate. They also control the Senate.

“De la Rua could win and find himself as the cherry on a Peronist cake,” said an official of the Menem administration. “He is not going to be in a position of strength.”

Challenger’s Setbacks

Duhalde still hopes to pull off an upset or force a runoff. But his main strength, the bare-knuckled provincial machine, has proved a weakness. He has been hurt by recent episodes of brutality and corruption involving his feared and influential provincial police. In fact, Duhalde’s allies accuse former police chiefs of sabotaging the candidate in revenge for his attempts to reform the force.

Duhalde also has complained about interference by Menem, a longtime rival who stole center stage for months by toying with a potential run for a third term. Menem demonstrated his disinterest in his party’s candidate last week when he skipped a Duhalde rally to attend an event with supporters who want Menem to seek the presidency--in 2003.

Menem professes Peronist loyalty, but political analysts say the master strategist has worked behind the scenes to undercut Duhalde and set himself up as chief of the political opposition for the next four years.

Despite Menem’s sagging public approval ratings, the strength of that opposition would make it hard for the Alliance to pursue a concerted investigation of a list of Menem-era scandals: drug-money laundering, smuggling by organized crime, mysterious politically related murders and suicides, two unsolved bombings tied to Middle Eastern terrorists and Argentine accomplices, and the suspicious enrichment of political figures.

De la Rua probably would distance himself from Menem on the issue of ties with the U.S. Menem established a special relationship with the U.S. that helped Argentina overcome decades of isolationism. In a memorable example of diplomatic imagery, Argentine Foreign Minister Guido di Tella described the close bond as “carnal relations.”

“No nation with a minimum of pride can talk about carnal relations,” De la Rua said. “We will have good relations with the United States. In fact, better relations in a framework of mutual respect, neither automatic alignment nor automatic nonalignment.”

Although some Alliance leaders are part of a regional policy trend favoring stronger ties with Europe to counterbalance U.S. power, analysts say any shift will be symbolic.

“There might be rhetoric about emphasizing Europe and not being so submissive to the United States. But there will not be changes,” consultant Mora y Araujo said.

An interesting potential change in the political landscape will depend on the performance of a third-party candidate, congressional deputy Domingo Cavallo, 53.

When he was economy minister, the Harvard-trained Cavallo led the historic reforms of this decade but broke with Menem after denouncing organized crime and political corruption. Cavallo’s fledgling Action for the Republic movement hopes to win enough votes to play a swing role in a divided legislature, positioning its hard-charging, internationally known candidate as a power broker.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Argentina at a Glance

THE VOTE

More than 24 million Argentines registered to vote for president, vice-president, six provincial governors, 116 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and scores of mayors and provincial lawmakers.

THE COUNTRY

People: 63.1 million, mainly of Spanish and Italian descent. Ninety percent are Roman Catholic. Has Latin America’s largest Jewish population, estimated at 250,000.

Land: Argentina occupies more than 1 million square miles.

Economy: Traditionally one of the most prosperous Latin American nations. Argentina’s economy reeled in the late 1980s and recovered under austerty measures imposed by President Carlos Menem. Massive privatization programs reaped more than $30 billion from sale of phone companies, airlines, ports, power plants and oil company, among others.