Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
equate the political team of Néstor and Cristina with the oligarchic
politicians of the Generation of Eighty. The former are
peronistas
,
after all. Taxes on the primary exports and the politics of income
redistribution characterize their agenda, and neither president has
been very chummy with officials of the U.S. government. Perón, too,
would approve.
Truth be told, Argentine society today does not compare to that
of the 1880s either. The unions have lost some of their power
from the glory days of populism, but the organized working class
has reconstituted itself behind the large body of the permanently
unemployed. The ranks of the disemployed grew during the neo-
liberal privatization schemes of President Carlos Menem. Then the
prolonged economic downturn from 1997 through 2001 expanded
the jobless population even more. The IMF riots, the looting of the
supermarkets, the blocking of highways, and the marches on the
public squares gave this class a new sense of empowerment. The
middle class tolerated—even sympathized with—them for a while;
politicians like Néstor and Cristina negotiate informally with them.
Public spending has provided a safety net for this more or less per-
manently impoverished sector of society like never before. This fact
explains the redistributive tendencies of today's body politic. It is not
textbook neoliberalism but political expediency.
Restructuring Executive Powers
Those who benefit from political power are not often those who
create it. Before Perón, there had been nationalism and unionism.
Before the Kirchners, there were the Peronist governors and congres-
sional representatives. The beginning foundered a bit in the wake of
President de la Rúa's forced resignation, presenting Argentina with
the dubious honor of another first. In two weeks' time following
December 20, 2001, the country had four presidents, each raised
from the ranks of the powerful governors until the most powerful of
them consolidated the interim government. Buenos Aires governor
Eduardo Duhalde moved from La Plata to the Casa Rosada in Buenos
Aires to serve out the term of the repudiated de la Rúa. President
Duhalde held the state together through the worst two years of the
economic crisis. He had behind him a cautious public opinion much
chastened by recent historical events. Few were the voices that cried
out for military intervention or for deeper economic reforms of the
