President Seeks Crisis Powers in Argentina

President Fernando de la Rua on Sunday appealed to Argentina’s political parties to band together and form a national unity government to confront a growing political crisis.

In a nationally televised address, De la Rua said he will ask Congress to grant him “special emergency powers” to cope with the crisis. He added that he will soon unveil a new government that includes a cross-section of parties after a new austerity program threatened to rupture his own two-party ruling coalition.

On Friday, hours after the government rolled out an austerity program aimed at pulling Argentina out of a 33-month recession, three key Cabinet members resigned and the junior partner in the ruling coalition withdrew from De la Rua’s government.

The defection of six senior officials of the left-leaning Frepaso party has left De la Rua scrambling for badly needed political support to implement economic reforms demanding spending cuts of $4.5 billion over the next two years.