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REPORTS: ARGENTINA |
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ARGENTINA:
President-Elect to Face Challenge of Weak
Mandate
Marcela
Valente
BUENOS AIRES, May 15 (IPS) - Argentina's
new president-elect Néstor Kirchner will
face the challenge of gaining the
legitimacy that he was unable to win at
the polls due to his rival Carlos Menem's
withdrawal from the electoral race.
Kirchner became president-elect by default
Wednesday when former president Menem
(1989-1999), who won the first round of
elections on Apr. 27, announced that he
would not stand in the run- off that had
been scheduled for Sunday.
But Kirchner, who will take the reins of
this crisis-stricken country from
caretaker President Eduardo Duhalde on May
25, will not enjoy a popular mandate,
because of Menem's exit.
Menem took 24 percent of the votes in the
first round. Kirchner, governor of the
southern province of Santa Cruz, came in
second with just 22 percent -- which will
make him the president with the lowest
proportion of votes in Argentine history.
He had been set to become the president
with the largest share of votes ever:
according to opinion polls, he would have
taken between 71 and 79 percent of the
votes next Sunday, compared to Menem's 21
to 29 percent.
Both belong to the Justicialista (Peronist)
Party, in power since the collapse of the
government of Fernando de la Rúa (1999-
2001), who had been elected at the head of
a centre-left alliance that pledged to
sweep away the corruption that marked
Menem's two terms in office.
Shortly before announcing he was quitting
the race, Menem said ''Let him (Kirchner)
keep his 22 percent of the vote, I'll stay
with (keep) the people.''
Kirchner now faces the challenge of
renegotiating Argentina's bulky foreign
debt, including a large portion on which
it has ceased payments, reducing the
nearly 60 percent poverty rate, cutting
unemployment, which affects nearly one in
four workers, and getting the collapsed
economy, still in the grip of its worst
crisis in history, back on its feet.
He will also have to make good on his
promise to renovate the country's
discredited political leadership, a
central demand of the massive protests
that toppled de la Rúa in December 2001
and continued for months under the slogan
''the whole lot of them should go!''
Kirchner said on a local TV programme
Thursday that he much preferred running
governments to campaigning. ''I love to
administer, and I believe that at this
point, people aren't hoping for a great
statesman, but for a good administrator.''
He also said that just as the main focus
of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva --
who took office in January in neighbouring
Brazil -- was on ''zero hunger,'' the crux
of his policies would be ''fighting
extreme poverty and unemployment.''
On late Wednesday, Kirchner said Menem's
pullout ''culminates a historic cycle of
messianic and fundamentalist leadership.''
He also announced that ''a new era is
about to begin; we are heading towards a
new dawn.''
The president-elect described the two days
-- Tuesday and Wednesday -- during which
Menem kept the country on edge with
contradictory signals on whether or not he
was pulling out of the race as
''humiliating and disgraceful.''
The country's ''democratic institutions
were kept in limbo by a former president
who pulled off the tablecloth without the
slightest consideration of the damages,''
he said, adding that there would be no way
that Menem could recover after mounting
such a ''ridiculous'' spectacle.
In Kirchner's view, Menem's withdrawal
''serves the interests of economic groups
that benefited from inadmissible
privileges last decade,'' because the
country's new leader is assuming with a
much weaker mandate than he would
otherwise have had.
The little-known Kirchner said he would
not be beholden to corporations. ''My
convictions will not be checked at the
doors of the Casa Rosada (the seat of
government).''
On Thursday, he said that ''In Argentina
there are economic interests that are used
to having a manager, but here we're going
to have a president.''
But the new president will not have an
easy road ahead, political analysts warn.
The director of the Centre of Studies on
Public Opinion, Roberto Bacman, pointed
out that even though de la Rúa took
office in 1999 with strong legitimacy
after garnering 48 percent of the vote,
his administration ran into serious
governance problems and he was forced to
step down halfway through his term.
Duhalde thus inherited a profound
credibility crisis when he was appointed
transitional president by parliament in
January 2002 to serve out the rest of de
la Ruá's term.
But Duhalde was able to ''stabilise the
economy,'' which strengthened his
government, even though he never enjoyed
the legitimacy of being elected by the
popular vote, the analyst noted.
''Kirchner is facing a double challenge:
On one hand, gaining legitimacy for an
administration that is starting out with a
very low level of electoral support, and
on the other, governing a society that
still has enormous problems to work out,''
said Bacman.
Political analyst Rosendo Fraga, the
director of the Centre of Studies for the
New Majority, a local think-tank, said
Kirchner would have to build consensus and
''seek alliances among the political
leaders outside of his party who also made
a good showing in the first round of
elections.''
The president-elect said Wednesday that
''We are going to talk to all sectors.''
Sociologist Gerardo Adrogué, director of
the master's programme in public opinion
analysis at the National University of San
Martín, said Kirchner would start out
with ''precarious legitimacy,'' but that
he could turn that situation around by
governing well and fulfilling his campaign
promises.
Even before Menem formally announced he
was dropping out of the race,
vice-president-elect Daniel Scioli said
Kirchner was ''prepared and has everything
ready'' to govern.
''I want to transmit tranquillity to the
people. We already have people working,
and the cabinet has been defined,'' he
said.
Kirchner said Thursday that the cabinet
members had been chosen, but that the
announcement would be made ''after May
19.''
Political scientist Marcos Novaro warned
that it made no sense to downplay the
problems that the new president would face
as a result of his weak mandate, because
his government ''was going to be difficult
even if he won strong support in the
second round.''
''Now his maneuvering room will be just
that much more limited,'' Novaro, a
professor at the Latin American Faculty of
Social Sciences, told IPS.
''That may be an advantage, because it
will force Kirchner to keep on his toes
and avoid mistakes, but it also reveals
the limitations that his administration
will face,'' he added.
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