Confounding his critics, Menem is not only campaigning for the presidency again but is likely to do well enough in the April 27 voting to enter the runoff phase of the election in May. The former president is undaunted by the fact that more than half the population say they would never vote for him. “Jesus Christ also attracted both love and hate,” he declared with characteristic hubris after his speech. His return from the dead, say analysts, powerfully suggests that the corrupt and incompetent political class that sowed the seeds for Argentina’s economic collapse–including a more than 10 percent decline in GDP last year–is not about to retreat and let a new political generation take over.
Nearly a year and a half ago, the Peronist old guard seemed finished. In December 2001, tens of thousands of Argentines took to the streets to rail against the country’s politicians and mismanagement. Their anger toppled two presidents and seemed to herald a nascent political-reform movement. Their slogan was “¡Que se vayan todos!” –roughly, “Get rid of the lot of them!” Current president Eduardo Duhalde responded to the public clamor by asking all major politicians and cabinet members to sign a pledge stating that they’d resign when their terms were up.
But nothing happened. Only two leaders responded to Duhalde’s plea–Duhalde himself, who is not running for re-election, and his Sports and Tourism secretary, Daniel Scioli. And even Scioli’s retirement didn’t last long: he’s accepted the position of running mate for the leading Peronist presidential candidate, Nestor Kirchner.
Although political reform is much talked about in Argentina, little is ever achieved. Congress has passed a law on party financing–setting limits on how much parties can raise from individual donors or spend–but there are doubts it will be enforced. Argentines were also promised democratic –party primaries, but only one party, the opposition Radicals, actually held them. After a protracted legal battle, the governing Peronists eventually gave up on the idea and simply allowed all their candidates to run for president. “This country’s leaders have spent the past 20 years using democracy for their own ends,” says Carlos March, executive director of Citizen’s Power, an anti-corruption group. “It was naive to think they would give up power so easily.”
If there are few brave new ideas, the upcoming elections are highlighting how there are even fewer new political faces. Kirchner, Menem’s main rival, is a little-known and uninspiring governor from a largely uninhabited province in the far south. Other leading presidential candidates include Adolfo Rodriguez Saa, who lasted just a week as president in 2001; Elisa Carrio, a messianic anti-corruption campaigner who’s considered too inexperienced for Argentina’s biggest job, and Ricardo Lopez Murphy, whose lack of political savvy got him sacked as Economic minister after only a week on the job in 2001.
The big problem, says March, is that canny politicians retain enough power–and friends–to resist political or even ethical challenge. Earlier this month, senators voted not to impeach one of their members, Luis Barrionuevo, despite evidence that his followers harassed voters and set fire to ballot boxes in the province of Cata-marca. (The election for governor will have to be held again.) An even larger problem, according to political scientist Isidoro Cheresky, is that the rot runs deeper than the political class. Many of Argentina’s judges and businessmen are also perceived as corrupt, self-serving and prone to cronyism. “It is not just a question of improving the parties, for which you need new leaders, but creating institutions that foster transparency and control,” says Cheresky. “It will be a long process because there has been massive deterioration.”
With the leading candidates all lumped together in the polls, and the very real possibility of election shenanigans, the political tension is rising. Experts say that close results in either the first or runoff round of voting could lead to disputes that would make the Bush-vs.-Gore legal battle in Florida look like a model of forbearance. “I don’t know if this country is ready for that,” says Diego Guelar, a former ambassador to the United Nations and a Menem loyalist. Few expect the situation to degenerate into violence–but widespread confusion could rob Argentina’s already weak institutions of what little legitimacy they now have.
