Concensus and apathy The elections of October 24 in Argentina were marked by apathy, lack of debate between candidates, lack of concrete proposals, and scant credibility for political candidates. Pedro Brieger* Voters seem permanently fed up the country's corrupt political parties. Everyone was looking forward to the morning after the elections, when at last there would be something else to talk about. Fifteen years after the return of democracy and after ten years of government, civil society is disarticulated and disorganised.
It is true that in Argentina GDP has increased by 50% in the last ten years. There is no more hyperinflation. Some
- such as telephones — work better than before. But the country's external debt $139bn between 1991 and 1997.
The average annual income is $8,300, but 80% of the population earns less than this. One in five Argentineans, live with less than $2 per day. The gap between rich and poor has
This terrible situation was hardly mentioned in the debates or speeches of the principal candidates.
Over the last few years, a broad consensus has developed around the idea that the economic model must not be tampered with. The hyperinflation stability and growth.
At the last minute Eduardo Duhalde, the ex-vice president under Menem and the candidate of peronism, attempted to portray himself as proposing real change, away from an "exhausted" model. He tried to give the impression of an opposing profile. reasserted his post-Peronist control over the right, stating — once the defeat was known — that if he had run, he would
It is not surprising that the new president, Fernando de la Rua, is always repeating that the economic model will be respected. De la Rua belongs to the most conservative sector of the Radical Civic Union (UCR), the oldest party of the country progressive traits, which has always had as its base of support the middle classes. While it is true that the UCR developed an alliance with centre-left government is dominated by the UCR
De la Rua's Alliance (Alianza) was the product of the weakness of the UCR after it came third (behind the Peronists and the Solidarity Front (FREPASO) in the presidential elections of 1995. The separate candidacies of the UCR and FREPASO allowed Menem to win that race. But the UCR reemerged from the ashes and ended up absorbing the remains of FREPASO, which seemed like a breath of fresh air in 1995, supported by the entire left, until it was atomised by internal divisions. Today almost no one in FREPASO questions the basic premises of neoliberalism, but rather its "collateral"
servants were involved in corruption scandals; his ex-minister of interior said that he "stole for the crown;" Argentinean weapons made their way to Croatia and Ecuador despite UN arms embargoes, which led to the prosecution of two ministers.
Menem's obsession with his own image and desperate to appear in public with whatever rock star or top model was visiting the country. But during his ten years of government he never received the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo or the of the victims of the 1992 attack against the Israeli embassy and the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish mutual society.
Once again, the Argentinean left has demonstrated its incapacity to present an alternative plan. The splintering of the left into different candidacies is not understood by the broad masses nor by the possible voters. Unlike Brazil and Uruguay, what remains of the left has degenerated into a number of sects hunting for the votes of the converted. Slogans proclaim the "purity" of their ideals while they accuse each other for the failure to achieve unity. And now?
The 48% of the vote achieved by De la Rua represents important support at the national level even though he does not have a majority of deputies and
But the country's largest province, Buenos Aires, will be governed by peronism (though Alianza has a majority in both chambers. This "coexistence" may later exist in other
What is still impossible to determine is the reaction of peronism to electoral defeat. This is no longer the mass peronism of the fifties or the of 1989, which caused the fall of Raul - effects such as social exclusion and Alfonsin, is an ever-present phantom. For this reason, the candidates of the majority parties assure us that there is no return to a "statist" or a "populist" past and that any alternative proposal will scare foreign investors - who are apparently the only guarantee of
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Netherlands. e-mail <iire@antenna.nb corruption. In the words of some of the leaders of the Alianza, the problem is not the economic reform carried out in the last years, but "how it was done."
President De la Rua inherits impoverished country, with increasing unemployment. Industry is in crisis, and Argentina has once again become an net exporter of raw materials, the prices of which are falling in the world market. He will not even be able to obtain financing by selling state enterprises because, after ten years of Menem, there is nothing else to sell.
Many of the votes for De la Rua reflect people's exasperation with a style of government reminiscent of the radicalised peronism of the seventies. The Menem regime achieved something that not even the military dictators were capable of achieving: the disarticulation of the social base of peronism through the destruction of the trade unions — the same unions that carried out 13 general strikes against Alfonsin.
For now, the new government will have a margin to rule, as long as it can negotiate with peronism, which is entrenching itself in Buenos Aires as a parallel government. Despite the social and economic crisis there are no foreseeable social explosions. * *Pedro Brieger is a sociologist and an analyst of international politics, author of several books, among them Adonde va Nicaragua [ Where is Nicaragua Going?] (Prized by Casa de las Americas, 1989). International Viewpoint #319 February 2000 13
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