Shifting Alliances: Party Politics in Argentina

...Formally established in August 1997, just two months before the legislative elections, the Alliance openly announced that its intention was to redraw the political map in Argentina, beginning with the 1997 elections, as part of a larger process of building a new majority and a new government in 1999...

...To address the pressing problem of unemployment, the UCR and FREPASO called for a special session of Congress that resulted in the formation of a permanent joint committee...

...The PJ has thus played a decisive role in articulating a heterogeneous electoral coalition in support of the Menem Administration...

...133 (1998...

...Duhalde's status as the Peronists' "natural candidate" in the 1999 presidential elections is now up for grabs-giving Menem a chance to redouble his attempt to change the Constitution yet again in order to run for a third consecutive term as president...

...1990 due to his opposition to Menem's neoliberal policies, and Graciela Ferndndez Mejide, a former schoolteacher who became a prominent human rights activist after one of her children was disappeared by the military dictatorship...

...Its success is based essentially on the prestige of a handful of leaders who are dynamic and effective communicators-primarily congressional leaders Carlos "Chaco" Alvarez, a former Peronist who abandoned the PJ in 13 CREPORT ON ARGENTINA FREPASO and the Radicals knew that if the Peronists won the 1997 legislative elections, it would be impossible to defeat them in the presidential elections two years later...

...Another faction within the party supported the Menem government in exchange for certain favors, including numerous shady "business deals" which benefited legislators and provincial governors as well as some trade unions...

...As a result, traditional Peronists began to look elsewhere when it came time to vote...

...Only then will Argentina have passed this crucial test for the consolidation of democracy...

...Both parties successfully recruited new members, and participation in internal elections and campaign rallies was high...

...Argentina's other traditional party, the Radicals, was facing serious internal problems of its own-a situation which also favored the emergence of FREPASO...

...The deep divisions within the Peronist leadership made it impossible for those in the party who opposed neoliberalism to mount an effective challenge to Menem's policies...

...Not only did it reveal the growing consensus among the opposition-even on the issue of economic policy, which until then had been the government's strong suit-but it also convinced the Radicals and the Frentistas, as members of FREPASO are called, of the benefits of an alliance between the two groups...

...4. Steven Levitsky, "Crisis, Party Adaptation, and Regime Stability in Argentina: The Case of Peronism, 1989-1995," 1997, Mimeograph...

...Shifting Alliances: Party Politics in Argentina 1 .James W. McGuire, "Political Parties and Democracy in Argentina," in Scott Mainwaring and Timothy Scully, eds., Building Democratic Institutions (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995), pp...

...of the country's economic and political crisis undermined voter loyalties...

...By the early 1990s, two-thirds of Argentine citizens identified themselves as independents.2 Carlos Menem ably took advantage of this situation when he assumed the presidency in 1989...

...She is perceived as an honest leader who is effective and reasonable, and she combines a spirit of opposition with a vocation for public service that the Alliance seeks to project...

...5. Edward Gibson and Ernesto Calvo, "Electoral Coalitions and Market Reforms...

...While 84% of Argentines polled in 1984 said they approved of political parties, by 1988 that number had dropped to 63% and then to 15% in the early 1990s.1 Voluntary membership and local-level party organizations also suffered a significant decline after the mid-1980s...

...Key to FREPASO's electoral success in both election campaigns was the fact that the mass media and a broad sector of independent public opinion were increasingly receptive to the group's center-left discourse, which criticized corruption and the government's abuse of authority, the concentration of wealth, and the dramatic rise in poverty under Menem's watch...

...On governors, see Edward Gibson and Ernesto Calvo, "Electoral Coalitions and Market Reforms: Evidence from Argen- tina," 1997, Mimeograph...

...This division within the UCR, coupled with the party's defeat in the 1991 and 1993 legislative elections, prompted Radical governors in C6rdoba, Catamarca, Chubut and Rio Negro as well as hundreds of UCR mayors throughout the country to distance themselves from the party's national leadership...

...This restructuring of Peronismo was crucial to the legislative victories of the PJ in 1991 and 1993 and to Menem's reelection in 1995...

...Its first steps were to criticize the concentration of power in the hands of the Executive during the Menem Administration and to reaffirm the importance of Congress in consolidating a democratic political system based on checks and balances...

...This coalition brings together business and middle-class sectors who favor pro-market reforms, on the one hand, and more traditional supporters, linked to old-style Peronist clientelism and populism in the provinces and in the poor neighborhoods of the large cities, on the other...

...The success of the blackout in particular marks a point of rupture in the political scenario...

...In effect, Menem turned the institutional crisis of the Peronist party into an opportunity to redefine and strengthen its organization, identity and program...

...Cultura politica y opinion pOblica en la transicifn argentina a la democra- cia (Buenos Aires: Planeta, 1989...

...Today it is akin to the Mexican Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), a "state" party, commanded-and financed-from the heights of power and used as a political instrument of government...

...While the Menem Administration had proven adept at keeping such issues out of the campaign agenda on previous occasions, it was unable to do so in the 1997 legislative elections, which were swept by the Alliance...

...Moreover, Menem's decidedly non-Peronist social and economic policies began to undermine the loyalty of the PJ's traditional electoral constituency...

...FREPASO saw its first electoral success in the April 1994 Constitutional Assembly...

...The presence of FREPASO has had a notable impact on Argentine politics...

...Some of these protests, including the blackout of September 12, 1996 and the cacerolazo, or pot-banging, against the hike in telephone rates on February 10, 1997, had far-reaching repercussions in terms of mobilizing public opinion in favor of FREPASO and the UCR...

...With the UCR discredited after the collapse of the Alfonsin government, and with the Peronist party in a deep internal crisis-racked by disputes between the reformist and orthodox factions and between trade-union and local leaders of the party-both parties willingly delegated broad powers to Menem at the beginning of his term...

...Aware of the difficulty of confronting Peronism divided, the two parties began to negotiate a series of concrete agreements...

...Paradoxically, then, neoliberal structural reforms and the transformation of Peronism brought about by Menem and his cronies created the conditions for the emergence of a progressive movement in Argentina...

...Together, they formed the Alliance for Jobs, Justice and Education, and swept the 1997 vote...

...They preferred to limit themselves to local politics and avoid national problems in order to rebuild local-level support for the UCR in their districts, and, at the same time, to avoid antagonizing the central government, which retained control of the purse strings for local government...

...overseeing their conduct, the Public Ministry and an investigative committee on corruption...

...There was also collaboration at other levels...

...5 As a result of this reconversion of Peronism, party leaders have greater difficulty communicating with the grassroots...

...In effect, FREPASO was able to take advantage of a growing popular demand for a progressive, nationalist opposition at a time when the UCR appeared to have abandoned this role...

...It retained four governorships in the 1995 elections, in addition to the province of Chaco, which it governed in alliance with FREPASO...

...But the impact 11 a a Marcos Novaro is a researcher at the Gino Germani Institute...

...and Vicente Palermo and Marcos Novaro, Politica y poder en el gobierno de Menem (Buenos Aires: Norma, 1996...

...That decision precipitated a more dramatic electoral loss for the Radicals, marked by a flight of votes and leaders to FREPASO...

...The upheavals of the late 1980s-hyperinflation and the crisis of governabilitywhich led to the early transfer of power to Menem were partly the result of the uncertainty generated by the imminent change in presidential leadership...

...They had enough foresight to see that if the Peronists were successful in the 1997 parliamentary elections, it would be difficult if not impossible to defeat them in the presidential elections two years later...

...Will this lead the PJ to seek to retain power at all costs, even the demise of constitutional rule in Argentina...

...While the government of Radl Alfonsin, of the Radical Civic Union Party (UCR), held out great VOL XXXI, No 6 MAY/JUNE 1998 RaOl Alfonsin hands over the presidency to Carlos Menem at the Casa Rosada on July 8, 1989, six months ahead of schedule...

...A wide gamut of social activists and leaders were also crucial to the founding of FREPASO...

...He is co-author with Vicente Palermo, of Polftica y Poder en el Gobierno de Menem (Flacso/Norma, 1996) and Caminos de la centroizquierda: Dilemas y desafios del FREPASO (Losada, 1998) Translated from the Spanish by Margot Olavarria.REPORT ON ARGENTINA Over the years, Menem's decidedly non-Peronist social and economic policies have undermined the loyalty of the party's traditional constituency...

...Menem's reforms exacerbated the internal crisis of the PJ...

...This, in turn, gave rise to a new opposition force, the National Solidarity Front (FREPASO), a center-left coalition established in 1994...

...The Alliance has also sought to establish a job-creation program, to promote small and medium businesses and the development of regional economies, to obtain funding to increase the abysmally low salaries of schoolteachers, and to reduce taxes on basic food items...

...As a result, traditional Peronist voters began to look elsewhere when it came time to vote...

...FREPASO was unquestionably the most dynamic opposition force of this period...

...But perhaps the most significant and surprising result of the election was the Alliance victory in Buenos Aires-long considered a bastion of Peronism-where it won 48.3% of the vote, compared to the PJ's 41.3...

...6. Vicente Palermo and Marcos Novaro, Politica y poder en el gob- ierno de Menem...

...In marked contrast to the country's traditional parties, the group's organizational and territorial presence is minimal...

...NACILA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 12REPORT ON ARGENTINA Children eat lunch at a Peronistsponsored soup kitchen in Moreno, a shantytown 20 miles from downtown Buenos Aires...

...In fact, between 1989 and 1991, Menem governed without input from his party or from Congress, implementing an aggressive program of pro-market reforms by decree-reforms that fundamentally challenged the basic tenets of Peronism and the developmentalist state it had helped create...

...Ferndndez Meijide is well known for her ability to translate institutional debates into practical issues, and for championing human rights, justice and social integration...

...This is especially problematic given the restructuring of the Peronist party under Menem and the fact that the PJ remains united and active primarily due to its intimate links to the state...

...By the end of 1995, the Radical Party had renovated its national leadership and recovered its unity-a key element to the UCR victory in the municipal elections of 1996, when it won the city government of Buenos Aires...

...As early as 1995, FREPASO and the UCR began to entertain the possibility of forming an alliance with a view to the July 1999 presidential elections...

...Also among the Alliance's legislative priorities are limiting the powers delegated to the President, approving laws on public ethics and the financing of political parties, and eliminating reserve funds, which consist of budgeted funds that are controlled by the President, who is not required to report how they are spent...

...The Alliance then developed a series of themes that would guide the 1997 campaign and shape the future legislative agenda, which included the creation of the Council of the Magistracy, charged with appointing judges and NAC1IA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 14REPORT ON ARGENTINA Graciela Fernandez Meijide, a congressional leader for the Alliance for Jobs, Justice and Education, is a leading contender for the 1999 presidential elections...

...These problems did not, however, cause the complete disintegration of the UCR...

...4 This does not mean the party is irrelevant...

...Finally, FREPASO has stimulated public debate and prompted a flurry of legislative activity...

...and Steven Levitsky, "Crisis, Party Adaptation, and Regime Stability in Argentina...

...The formation in 1997 of the Alliance for Jobs, Education and Justice-a coalition of FREPASO and the UCR-consolidated these changes, producing a fundamental shift in Argentine politics...

...The Alliance swept the elections at the national level, with 45.6% of the vote, compared to 36.2% for the PJ...

...From the outset, FREPASO was a harsh critic of Menem's relentless neoliberalism and consistently challenged him to respond to the growing problems of unemployment and poverty...

...200-246...

...The pro-Angeloz sector of the UCR, meanwhile, openly backed Menem's policies...

...hope in the early 1980s as the country was emerging from seven dark years of military rule, it had collapsed by 1989 to the point that Alfonsin handed power over to President-elect Carlos Menem, of the Peronist Party (PJ), six months ahead of schedule...

...It was the result of the convergence of dissident groups from the PJ and the UCR with Socialist Unity and other smaller groups from the left and center-left, including the Christian Democrats, the Intransigent Party and the Communist Party...

...The fact that Peronism has already played the role of an opposition party during the Alfonsfn government offers some hope that if the PJ loses the elections, it will peacefully hand over power to its elected successor...

...3 It was Menem's ability to turn these divisions within the PJ to his advantage that secured his hold on power after 1991 and permitted him to sustain the neoliberal course he had embarked upon...

...With voters upset over the signing of the Olivos Pact, the FREPASO list won in Buenos Aires and the province of Neuqu6n...

...First, it prompted the traditional parties, and especially the Radicals, to renew their party leadership and to revise their policies and strategies...

...The UCR, besieged by crisis after the collapse of the Alfonsin Administration, had difficulties adopting a unified and consistent position against Menem...

...This situation came to a head in 1993, when several Radical governors publicly expressed their support for the official proposal to reform the Constitution in order to allow Menem to run for reelection in 1995...

...On the contrary, in the hands of the President, the party is fundamental to guaranteeing the success or at least the viability of the government's policies...

...Argentina in the late 1980s was devastated by hyperinflation and a political crisis linked to a series of military uprisings against the constitutional regime...

...3.On the behavior of unionists, see Victoria Murillo, "Union Responses to Economic Reform in Argentina: Organizational Autonomy and the Marketization of Corporatism," 1994, Mimeo- graph...

...6 In effect, Menem had coopted the economic program that Alfonsin and the Radical presidential candidate in 1989, Eduardo Angeloz, had been advocating...

...The electoral results have been devastating for the PJ...

...While the alternation of power from a Radical president to a Peronist in 1989 was an important step towards the consolidation of democracy-particularly since it represented the first peaceful transfer of power in Argentina this century-the problem of succession remains at least partly unresolved...

...The UCR and the PJ, the country's traditional parties, seemed to enjoy widespread support during the transition elections of 1983...

...This was partly due to the fact that Fernindez Meijide, the Alliance candidate for the province of Buenos Aires, proved to be an adept and persuasive advocate...

...The PJ was reorganized completely, from the highest positions to each one of its local chapters...

...Second, its emergence as a third force effectively opened the door for the formation of governing coalitions and for a more open game of competition and collaboration between political parties than was ever possible under the previous bipartisan system...

...In early 1996, Carlos Alvarez of FREPASO and Rodolfo Terragno, president of the UCR, organized a Multisector Forum, an assembly of party, social, union and business organizations that planned a series of creative protests against government policies...

...In Congress, for example, they agreed that the special powers to legislate demanded by the President had to be curtailed, and they declared their opposition to both the structural-adjustment policies implemented in mid-1996 and to the 1997 budget...

...An electoral alliance that formed last year-and defeated the Peronists in legislative elections-has set its sights on the presidency in 1999...

...Given Menem's apparent determination to remain in the Casa Rosada, the 1999 elections represent an important test for Argentine democracy-the first peaceful transfer of power from a Peronist to a president of another political party...

...In this sense, handing over power to another party may be perceived by some Peronist leaders as a threat to the party's very existence...

...Gobierno, Congreso y organizaciones de interns en America Latina," in Desarrollo Econdmico, No...

...In sum, Menem has not tried to marginalize and weaken the PJ, as some have argued, but rather, he has progressively incorporated it into the government itself...

...It remains to be seen whether the PJ will accept the electoral defeat of an incumbent Peronist president and step down from power peacefully...

...The conservative populist discourse of Eduardo Duhalde, the Peronist governor of Buenos Aires and Menem's likely successor as presidential candidate, stands in marked contrast to that of Alliance leaders like Fernmndez Meijide...

...In the presidential elections the following year, FREPASO won nearly 30% of the vote, displacing the Radicals as Argentina's second-largest political force...

...This has allowed him to use the party not only as an instrument of control from above, but also as a means of connecting the party's grassroots constituency to the government by channeling social demands and regulating public policy...

...The proAlfonsin faction of the UCR thus had little credibility when it criticized the growing concentration of wealth and the corruption increasingly evident in the Menem government...

...2. Edgardo Catterberg, Los argentinos frente a la politica...

...The partial recomposition of the UCR was crucial in allowing the party to redefine its strategy and seal an alliance with FREPASO in 1997...

...These victories reinforced Menem's control over the party apparatus by assuring the loyalty of party officials who had ridden Menem's coattails to public office and to bureaucratic positions of power...

...On the relationship between the Executive and the party in Congress, see Sebastian Etcheruendy and Vicente Palermo, "Conflicto y concertaci6n...

...The risk of an irreversible rupture within the UCR was one of VOL XXXI, No 6 MAY/JuNE 1998 the motives behind Alfonsfn's decision to sign the reelection agreement, known as the Olivos Pact...

...The Alliance won 61 seats in the lower house, effectively breaking the Peronist majority in the Chamber of Deputies...