Voters Reject Argentina’s Ruling Legislators

Angered after years of economic collapse and fiscal austerity, Argentines voting in midterm elections Sunday handed a decisive defeat to the center-left coalition led by President Fernando de la Rua.

Early returns in the vote to elect half of Argentina’s congressional deputies and all of its senators showed the ruling Alliance bloc losing ground in nearly every part of the country.

The results point to a difficult second half of De la Rua’s term. He faces reelection in 2003. Alliance, led by the Radical party, is already a minority in both houses of Congress, and it seemed destined to lose more seats Sunday.

“With all humility, we accept this result,” said Federico Storani, a Radical party leader in suburban Buenos Aires, where the Alliance candidate lost in a landslide. “This has been a plebiscite against the government’s economic policies.”

The elections came after two years of instability that saw Argentine officials slash spending in a desperate effort to avoid defaulting on the country’s $130-billion foreign debt. Pensions have been cut sharply, and thousands of government workers have been laid off. One in six Argentines is unemployed.

De la Rua conceded defeat late Sunday, congratulating the opposition Peronists and acknowledging that “after this election, I know many things must change . . . .

“I understand the impatience and the anger of the people,” he added. “I will not cover my ears.”

Even in the coalition’s stronghold in central Buenos Aires, Alliance candidates finished second to the category known here as “anger votes”--ballots that were either blank or intentionally nullified--according to exit polls.

Pollster Artemio Lopez estimated that 4.3 million Argentines, about a quarter of the electorate, either didn’t vote--in violation of the law--or cast votos bronca.

“The level of abstention was, without a doubt, a record,” Lopez said.

At the center of the national economic crisis stands De la Rua, a bland technocrat and Radical party activist who won election in 1999 promising to wipe out government corruption.

“I don’t think the president is a bad man or a dishonest man,” said Horacio Carlos Manete, 51, a resident of the northern Buenos Aires district of Nunez. “He just doesn’t have any idea how to handle the crisis.”

Manete, who voted for De la Rua in 1999, couldn’t bring himself to vote for the Radical party this time. After contemplating casting a blank ballot, he instead voted for the new Alternative for a Republic of Equals, a party formed nine months ago by Radical party dissidents.

The new party appeared likely to finish second or third here in the capital, according to exit polls. Nationwide, however, the big winner was the Peronist party.

By late Sunday, results showed the Peronists winning in 13 of Argentina’s 23 provinces, while the Alliance was leading only in four and in the capital.

Pollster Manuel Mora y Araujo predicted that the Peronists would become the largest party in the lower house of Congress.

In the vast suburbs and towns that surround Buenos Aires--home to a third of the Argentine electorate--exit polls showed an overwhelming victory for the Peronist candidate in a key Senate race. Eduardo Duhalde defeated the Alliance candidate, Raul Alfonsin, by 43% to 17%, according to one exit poll. The same poll showed that more people cast null or blank ballots than voted for Alfonsin, a former president who remains a respected figure here.

“The problem is the sharp crisis that we are all living,” Alfonsin said after the margin of his defeat became clear. “It’s obvious that all those men and women who are suffering are going to put the blame on the government.”

At the Peronist headquarters here, party stalwarts celebrated underneath two large portraits of party founder Juan Peron and his wife, Eva.

“This is a rejection of the economic policies that have decimated the Argentine middle class,” declared winning Senate candidate Duhalde, who has also emerged as a likely candidate in the 2003 presidential race. “It’s an economic policy designed to favor the rich.”

Even in De la Rua’s own Alliance, many candidates ran against his economic plan and the policies of his economy minister, Domingo Cavallo.

“The De la Rua administration will be even weaker after the election,” political analyst Rosendo Fraga said. “As a result, its big political challenge will be to maintain its ability to govern.”