Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
A bit of trivia: Carlos Menem's Syrian ancestry earned him the nickname 'El Turco' (the
Turk). And in 2001 he married Cecilia Bolocco, a former Miss Universe who was 35
years his junior; they're now separated.
Enter Néstor Kirchner
Duhalde's Minister of Economy, Roberto Lavagna, negotiated a deal with the IMF in
which Argentina would pay only the interest on its debts. Simultaneously, devaluation of
the peso meant that Argentina's products were suddenly affordable on the world market,
and by 2003 exports were booming. The surge was great for the country's GNP, but
prices at home skyrocketed, plunging more of Argentina's already shaken middle class
into poverty.
A presidential election was finally held in April 2003, and Santa Cruz Governor
Néstor Kirchner emerged victoriously after his opponent, former president Carlos
Menem, bowed out of the election.
By the end of his term in 2007, Kirchner had become one of Argentina's most popular
presidents. He reversed amnesty laws that protected members of the 1976-83 junta from
being charged for atrocities committed during the Dirty War. He took a heavy stance
against government corruption and steered the economy away from strict alignment with
the US (realigning it with that of Argentina's South American neighbors). And in 2005
he paid off Argentina's entire debt to the IMF in a single payment. By the end of Kirch-
ner's presidency in 2007, unemployment had fallen to just under 9% - from a high of
nearly 25% in 2002.
But not everything was bread and roses. The fact that Argentina had repaid its debt
was fantastic news indeed, but economic stability didn't necessarily follow. In fact, a
series of problems ensued during Kirchner's presidency: high inflation rates caused by a
growing energy shortage; unequal distribution of wealth; and a rising breach between
rich and poor that was slowly obliterating the middle class.
However, things were going well enough for Kirchner. When the presidential seat
went up for grabs in 2007, Argentines expressed their satisfaction with Kirchner's
policies by electing his wife, well-known Senator Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, as
president. Cristina won the presidency with a whopping 22% margin over her nearest
challenger and became Argentina's first elected female president.
