Revolution in Argentina

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Fri Dec 21 13:43:34 PST 2001


On Thu, 20 Dec, Seth Ackerman wrote:


> What follows is a conspiracy theory that I don't necessarily believe.
> How farfetched is it? The Bush administration leaned on the IMF to cut
> off Argentina in the hope that this would lead to De la Rua's fall
> from power. Then they made a secret deal with the Peronists that upon
> taking power they would dollarize. In exchange, Washington would
> support them with bilateral aid. Hence the Peronists recent refusal to
> join in a coalition government.

I think there are simpler explanations for both events, although that doesn't mean yours aren't the right ones.

In the case of the IMF's refusal to cough off more money, I think their last bail out is now almost universally accepted as having thrown good money after bad and their main goal in life for the last few months has been to figure out how to weasel out of it and blame it on Argentina.

In the case of Menem not joining the coalition government, I think his main motive is that he wants to be president again. He's forbidden by the constitution from running again until four years after he last left office in 1999. But he thinks that if he can get the Peronist-dominated parliament to appoint him as the provisional president to carry out the last two years of Del la Rua's term, he can be president starting now -- and run again in 2003.

And if not -- if the parliament or courts decide they have to hold elections now -- then the other Peronist candidate, Duhalde, would likely win, which is why his wing of the party was also for rejection. In short, the Peronists saw the presidency was theirs for the taking. Few parties in history have ever turned that down for the sake of the nation. And in this case it's not even obvious that coalition government would have been better.

Michael

__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com



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