Argentina: Post-Election Power Struggles
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Área: Latin America - ARI Nº 114/2003 9/29/2003 Argentina: post-election power struggles Pablo Gerchunoff ∗ Subject: General and provincial elections in most parts of Argentina have begun to clarify the political scene. The agreement with the IMF has done likewise as far as the economy is concerned. However, aside from the president’s strong popular support, many doubts remain as to the future of Argentina, particularly with respect to the role of the Justicialist Party. Summary: The last few weeks have seen elections to appoint governors and legislators in most Argentine provinces. The results can be seen from various angles: most of the local caciques were voted back in; Justicialism confirmed its position as the dominant political party; and the new president, Néstor Kirchner, was able to reinforce his grip on power by getting his candidates elected in the city of Buenos Aires and other less populated areas. However, Kirchner is not the leader of the Justicialist Party, meaning that he had to come to a series of cross-party compromises which upset the old guard. At the moment there is a tense but, so far, discreet power struggle which could end up in either open conflict or intra-party consensus. Kirchner’s ‘honeymoon’ popularity and the upturn in the economic cycle both work in his favour; the provincial barons, however, led by ex-president Eduardo Duhalde, hold significant reserves of power in both local and national government. Time will tell. Analysis: The elections held in most Argentine provinces over the last few weeks produced results open to various interpretations. It is undeniable that only twenty months after the social revolt that unseated Fernando De la Rúa on a wave of popular animosity against all politicians, the victors of these elections were the ‘same who were there before’. Only in Tierra del Fuego, a province created by constitutional reform in 1994, with few political roots, was the standing governor unable to renew his mandate nor impose – as occurred elsewhere– a hand-picked successor with a slightly renovated image. It is equally unarguable that the Justicialists have proved to be, once again, the dominant political party, although not the overwhelming force they once were. When on 10 December local and national legislators assume –or resume– their mandates, the movement created by Juan Domingo Perón will control three quarters of the provinces and have a majority in both houses of Congress. What is less clear is President Kirchner’s situation following the elections. Although he moved up spectacularly in the popularity polls, his political resources are insufficient. He is no longer the weak leader who obtained the presidency when other more heavy-weight candidates backed out, but he still lacks the clout to make him a national leader. A pall hangs over the political scene in Argentina. Although the voter turnout was not as depressing as the outburst of anti-political feeling in the 2001 general elections, the level of abstention was still high, at 30%, and spoiled or blank ballot papers accounted for another 7% of votes. ∗ Pablo Gerchunoff Torcuato Di Tella University, Argentina 1 Área: Latin America - ARI Nº 114/2003 Date 9/29/2003 A double-headed Justicialist Party In days gone by, when the Justicialist Party was in power, it went without saying that the presidency of the nation and the leadership of the party should be held by one and the same person. Not so today. The president is not, for now at any rate, the leader of the party and the party is a patchwork of provincial barons, chief among them being ex- president Eduardo Duhalde who, despite having no political post himself, has renewed his political standing in the powerful province of Buenos Aires by virtue of the victory of his hand-picked candidates. For the presidency and the party leadership not to reside in the same person is practically unheard of in the Justicialist Party. The only time something similar occurred was in 1973, when Héctor Cámpora headed the government while Perón was in full control of the party. The experiment lasted only 40 days and ended in a palace coup followed by fresh elections which swept Perón to the presidency on a wave of populism. However, despite his 70s air, Kirchner is no Cámpora, mainly because there is no Perón in the Justicialist Party. Cámpora’s fleeting reign as head of the executive branch of power was as Perón’s delegate; Kirchner, though he got the job as Eduardo Duhalde’s last resort to prevent Carlos Menem from doing so, used the splintering of both his own party and Argentine politics in general to initiate from his first day in office a race against time to build his own power base. In his efforts in this direction he has not remained within the confines of his own party, but made cross-party deals wherever it suited his purposes. He put forward his own candidates to challenge the official representatives of the Justicialist Party and supported with both his physical presence and public spending those official candidates who pledged him loyalty. Finally, in resignation and with all due caution, he made friendly gestures to those official candidates he could not unseat. This strategy bore its fruits, at the expense of sowing considerable disarray among the Justicialist Party leadership. The benefits are clear: Kirchner won the city of Buenos Aires, the second largest political constituency in the country, by supporting a centre-left candidate, Aníbal Ibarra, who would have been defeated without the presidential leg-up. He also won the small province of Misiones, in a straight fight with the official Justicialist Party candidate. He, of course, won in his home province of Santa Cruz. Formally at least, the Justicialist Party governors have closed ranks behind him; the progressive parties have joined his bandwagon, more or less enthusiastically as the case may be. But it is another story within the Justicialist Party apparatus, which disapproves of the president’s cross-party alliances and his less-than-veiled contempt for the party hierarchy. Indeed, the party proved incapable of beating the Radicals for one governorship, that of Río Negro, because of Kirchner’s support for a third runner who ended up splitting the vote. Such practices are not soon forgotten by the Justicialist Party and if criticism at the moment is behind closed doors, it is only because of the new president’s popularity. In the wake of the elections, the main question mark hanging over Argentine politics is where the tension in the dominant party or, to put it more exactly, between the dominant party and the president will lead. To date, Kirchner’s best card has been to exercise power energetically, promising radical reform. He has pledged to eliminate corruption and the obscure trafficking that goes on in the corridors of power, end political favouritism and restore to order the huge and hugely inefficient social security system. He has begun, with the support of Congress, to renovate the generally disrespected Supreme Court. He is talking tough with the privatised utilities and has used the same straight-to-the-jaw approach with the IMF. And he has at last managed to persuade Congess to repeal the laws passed by the Alfonsín government that prevent charges being brought against the military officers accused of crimes against humanity under the military dictatorship. This, combined with an economic recovery that had already begun when Eduardo Duhalde was still in office, but which is now more visible, constitutes his buttress against the malcontents. No local baron will risk raising a dissident voice against a popular president. 2 Área: Latin America - ARI Nº 114/2003 Date 9/29/2003 That political manoeuvring remains silent and is conducted with a Florentine subtlety for which the Justicialist Party is not normally noted does not mean that the struggles are over. Far from it. The strategy being followed by Duhalde and other influential local leaders is to offer Kirchner the chairmanship of the party and support for the government irrespective of party politics. The argument is as old as it is explicit: the Justicialist Party cannot be seen to be double- or multi-headed. In exchange, the sole condition is that Kirchner ceases to engage in cross-party deals that undermine Justicialist Party hegemony and throw together party leaders who have declared their unswerving loyalty to him with centre-left groups and independents, such as Foreign Minister Rafael Bielsa, whose light is merely a reflection of Kirchner’s. So far Kirchner is not prepared to play ball and has said as much through spokesmen. The counter-argument he uses is impeccably republican: the president is president of all Argentines and cannot at the same time be the leader of a faction. The real reason is rather different. The last thing Kirchner wants is to become embroiled in infighting within the Justicialist Party, however generous its leaders now appear. He does not want to be the elected king of a round table of feudal lords, a primus inter pares. What he wants is to exercise power as president and, from that vantage point, draw a political map of his own choosing. It is a strange encounter. Duhalde wants to be seen as the guarantor of the unity of the Justicialist Party and offer this on a plate to Kirchner as a tool of government. Kirchner is hesitant at accepting a tool not of his own making. On May 25, the day of his speech on accepting office, in which he made no mention of his predecessor, Kirchner showed the head of his advisors, Alberto Fernández, the staff of office with the remark, ‘It’s all we have’.