ARGENTINA: Argentina goes to the polls tomorrow to elect a president from candidates who have failed to convince a sceptical electoratethey can rescue the bankrupt nation, writes Michael McCaughan.
The final polls indicated a dead heat between Carlos Menem, Ricardo López Murphy and Néstor Kirchner, all attached to the Peronist party (PJ) which split three ways due to rival presidential ambitions.
A second round run-off next month seems certain as none of the dozen candidates will get the required 45 per cent of votes or 40 per cent with a 10- point lead over the nearest contender.
"I am the true disciple of Peron and Evita," boasted two-times president Carlos Menem, appealing to the legendary leader who presided over an era of labour rights and a resurgence of national pride. Beside him stood his wife, Cecilia Bolocco, a former Chilean beauty queen who caused an outrage when she appeared on the cover of a fashion magazine wearing nothing but an Argentinian flag made of fur.
Menem is anxious to distance himself from the economic collapse which occurred shortly after he left office in 1999. The country defaulted on its external debt, thousands of citizens lost their life savings and unemployment soared to over 20 per cent. Dozens of children have since died of malnutrition in a country once ranked inside the world's top 10 economies.
Menem, president in 1989-99, introduced free market reforms which destroyed domestic industry and tripled the external debt, yet he leads the opinion polls, pledging to distribute food to the needy and reactivate the moribund economy.
In a rush of patriotic fervour he even promised to retake the Malvinas, or Falkland Islands, despite formally renouncing the country's historic claim to improve relations with Britain during his period in office.
Last year's economic collapse was accompanied by a political implosion which saw four presidents come and go in a fortnight while workers occupied abandoned factories and organised popular neighbourhood assemblies in the absence of a credible central government. Over the past six months, however, much of the protest movement has been taken over by discredited left-wing parties while the daily struggle to survive has sapped the energy required to challenge the establishment.
Menem has won support among middle-class votes by pledging to repress the piqueteros, an unemployed group which places pickets on high- ways to block the circulation of goods in demand of welfare benefits. "We are going to bring the armed forces out on the street to help protect the life, liberty and property of Argentinians."
In an effort to take the edge off Menem's promises, interim president Eduardo Duhalde, a Peronist rival, last week ordered a brutal repression against workers occupying a textile factory. The Brukman factory, once an employer of thousands of workers, closed after the owners abandoned the firm in 2001, refusing to pay redundancy monies. A group of workers reoccupied the firm and restarted production. The government, fearing similar takeovers, sent 600 police officers into the factory, using tear gas and rubber bullets.
Sixty per cent of Argentinians say they would never vote for Menem yet nearly half the electorate believe he will win. "In a country ruled by rogues, the only way out of this mess is to vote for the top rogue," said one taxi- driver, an indication of the cynicism which has gripped the electorate.
Menem spent time under house arrest for his alleged role in illegal weapons sales to Croatia while international financial searches revealed multi-millionaire accounts squirreled away in European banks.
Argentinian citizens have lost faith in the electoral system but fear the consequences that might arise from a power vacuum. In the congressional elections of 2001, more than 20 per cent of voters inserted photos of Osama bin Laden in their ballot or deposited salt to simulate anthrax.
Once the most pro-American country in the region, Argentina has turned hostile to Uncle Sam after the US government refused to authorise a bailout deal to stave off collapse in 2001. Some 58 per cent of Argentina's 36 million people live in poverty, a figure which has nearly doubled from the 30 per cent of just a year ago.