Argentina: Presidential election full text
Searching more than 75 years of world history
Opinion polls conducted at the end of October indicated that Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, 54, Argentina’s first lady and the presidential candidate of the Front for Victory (FV), a faction of the ruling (Peronist) Justicialist Party (PJ), was likely to win the country’s presidential election in the first round of voting on Oct. 28. A poll conducted by public opinion company OPSM, cited in a report published on Oct. 24 by the Angus Reid Global Monitor, said that 42.5 per cent of the survey’s respondents would vote for Fernández de Kirchner, whilst 16.1 per cent would vote for Elisa Carrió, the candidate of the Alliance Affirmation for an Egalitarian Republic (ARI). Former Economy Minister Roberto Lavagna, the candidate of An Advanced Nation (UNA), was, the OPSM poll suggested, trailing in third place, with 11.6 per cent of voters favouring his candidacy.
Immediate Context
Fernández de Kirchner, the wife of incumbent President Néstor Kirchner, announced her candidacy as the PJ nominee in July, after her husband confirmed that he would not be running for a second term in office.
Most analysts agreed that support for Fernández’s candidacy had been strengthened by the popularity of President Kirchner, who was elected in May 2003. Kirchner won the 2003 election when former President Carlos Saúl Menem (1988-99), his rival in the second round vote, announced that he was withdrawing from the contest, after opinion polls had consistently indicated that he would be defeated in the vote.
Argentina had made a dramatic economic recovery under Kirchner’s administration, following the country’s economic collapse in 2001. In his annual presidential address in March 2007, Kirchner had said that the economic recovery had helped to improve social standards and the distribution of wealth in Argentina. He also said that the number of Argentinian citizens living in poverty had been reduced to 31 per cent of the population (from 60 per cent) since he had assumed power. In March 2006, Kirchner said that the economic recovery had resulted in significant social benefits, including a reduction in the rate of unemployment, which had dropped from 23.3 per cent in May 2002 to 10.1 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2005.
The state of the economy had been a major issue in Argentinian elections for many years, and concern over rising levels of inflation was a high profile issue in the 2007 campaign. Inflation became an significant election issue in February 2007 when the government was accused of attempting to manipulate the figure for the rate of inflation to make it appear artificially low. Crime was also a high profile issue, with protests in Argentina not uncommon against crime (especially violent crimes), those linked to the country’s “dirty war” era (1976-83), and corruption in the police force.
Reaction and Outlook
To win the presidential election in the first round of voting, a candidate was required to win more than 45 per cent of the vote or more than 40 per cent of the vote with a 10 per cent lead over the nearest rival. Otherwise, the two leading candidates were required to contest a second round run-off vote. Political analyst Ricardo Rouvier, in a report published on Oct. 24 by the Bloomberg news agency, said that opinion polls published throughout the election campaign had consistently indicated that Fernández de Kirchner would win outright in the first round. Rouvier added that a second round run-off vote “would be a huge surprise for the opposition candidates, for the society and a hard blow for the government”.
Victory for Fernandez de Kirchner in the election would make her the first woman to be elected as Argentina’s president. Former President (1974-76) María Estela Martínez de Perón, (also known as Isabel Martínez de Perón), was not elected but rather assumed the post in 1974 following the death of her husband, President Gen. Juan Domingo Perón (1946-55, 1973-74).
It was thought that Fernández de Kirchner would, if elected, adopt similar left-leaning policies to those implemented by her husband.
The winner of the election was expected to be inaugurated on Dec. 10 during a ceremony in Congress (the bicameral federal legislature) in Buenos Aires (the capital).
Historical Context
The 2007 presidential elections were the sixth to be held in Argentina since the end of the country’s “dirty war” era, during which the military junta brutally crushed domestic opposition, resulting in the death or “disappearance” of 13,000-30,000 people.
Basic civil liberties, including the legalisation of political parties, were restored in 1982, after the junta was fatally weakened by the defeat at the hands of the UK in that year of President Gen. (retd) Leopoldo Galtieri’s military invasion of the Falkland (Malvinas) Islands.
The “dirty war” era officially ended in December 1983, with the advent of a new civilian government headed by President Raul Alfonsin Foulkes, the leader of the Radical Civic Union (UCR), which won a majority at the general election in October 1983. Carlos Saúl Menem won the presidency in 1989 and 1995. During Menem’s first term in office, many senior military officers were granted presidential pardons for crimes committed during the “dirty war” era. Many of the pardons were, however, later overturned by federal courts.
When Fernando de la Rua, the candidate of the opposition, centre-left Alianza coalition, won the presidency in October 1999, his government inherited more than US$100 billion of national debt, incurred following the onset in 1999 of an economic recession. In 2001, President de la Rua was forced to appoint three new finance ministers in a matter of weeks, after a series of resignations and street protests against his planned austerity measures. In December 2001, de la Rua and his entire cabinet resigned after the announcement of emergency measures, designed to resolve the economic crisis, prompted violent unrest in cities across the country.
In the immediate aftermath of the fall of the government--and in accordance with Argentina’s constitution--Ramón Puerta, the then president of the Senate (the upper chamber of Congress), was on Dec. 21 appointed by Congress as an interim head of state. However, Puerta resigned on Dec. 23, prompting Congress to appoint Adolfo Rodríguez Saá as acting president. Rodriguez Saá also resigned, on Dec. 31, and he was immediately replaced by Eduardo Camaño, who held the post for just two days, until Jan. 2, 2002, when Congress appointed Eduardo Duhalde as Argentina’s fifth president in a matter of weeks. Duhalde held the presidency until May 2003, when Néstor Kirchner won the election.
- Click here to browse the timeline (free)
- Click here to subscribe to Keesing's online, for unlimited access to our full archive and research features
