Carlos Menem - the devil they know

By SOPHIE ARIE

A year ago Carlos Saul Menem, Argentina's septuagenarian former President, married a former beauty queen half his age and began to plot his return to power. His wife, Cecilia Bolocco de Menem, a heart-throb television presenter in neighbouring Chile, made a bid for a place in the nation's heart by posing on a magazine cover as the nation's diva, Eva Duarte Peron, wrapped only in an Argentine flag.

As Argentines marked the 50th anniversary of Evita's death, the new model Peronist couple were closer to their goal. The former President was running second in the latest opinion polls ahead of elections next March. But the couple also faced a scandal with worldwide implications.

Menem, already facing numerous corruption allegations, was confronted with a report that he accepted a US$10 million ($21.6 million) payoff from Iran to cover up its role in Argentina's worst terrorist attack, a suicide bombing that killed 85 people in a Buenos Aires Jewish community centre in 1994.

The Ferrari-loving 72-year-old, who was President from 1989 to 1999, is used to seeing off corruption scandals. He spent five months under house arrest last year for alleged involvement in arms trafficking to Croatia and Ecuador.

His supporters claimed last week that the Government of President Eduardo Duhalde had leaked the latest allegation. Local media hailed the scandal as the "beginning of the end" of Menem's chances of a comeback.

Although most Argentines still disapprove of Menem, he has edged up in recent polls, trailing only the favourite, corruption-buster Elisa Carrio.

She dismissed the prospect of his return but most analysts warn that unless more moderate candidates emerge, Argentines may be more tempted to elect "the devil they know".

In a country steeped in nostalgia for its past glory, the idea of a returning leader is burned into the national psyche. Juan Domingo Peron took power in 1945, was ousted by a military coup in 1955, then made a comeback in 1973, after years of exile.

"Sadly it is not unheard of that ex-Presidents suspected of corruption make it back into power," said Ricardo Rouvier, a Buenos Aires political analyst. "Menem's great appeal is that he has been in power before. He is the one strong, decisive leader who really wants it."

Most Argentines still hold him largely responsible for running up crippling debts through Government overspending and rampant corruption. Now the country has defaulted on its US$141 billion ($304.2 billion) debt and the peso has lost more than one-third of its pre-December value, Argentines feel they are paying the price for the Menem's "pizza and champagne" years.

But as unemployment has soared, the man who saved Argentina from its last economic crisis in 1989 has become an increasingly tempting option.

Menem was born in Argentina to Syrian immigrant parents and was raised as a Sunni Muslim before converting to Catholicism in his youth. He was also an early convert to Peronism and founded the Peron Youth Group in 1955. The following year he was jailed for supporting a revolt aimed at restoring Peron to power, the first of several spells behind bars. He was released, completed his law degree and continued his political career.

In 1973 he was elected governor of the Andean province of La Rioja, his home, which gave him national prominence during the last year's of Peron's presidency.

He went back into jail in 1976 when Peron's third wife Isabel was forced from power, and was not released until 1981. He was re-elected governor in 1983 and again in 1987.

Menem followed the Peronist recipe. He doubled the state government payroll and printed state bonds that circulated as currency. And he built a cult following. He was pictured with sports stars such as Diego Maradona, drove racing cars and motorcycles and was perpetually in the gossip columns linked with beautiful women.

In 1989 he defeated the incumbent Raul Alfonsin to become President in Argentina's first transfer of power from one constitutionally elected party to another since 1928. In national office he quietly dropped some of the Peronist economic policies, stimulating a free market and reducing welfare subsidies.

He devalued the currency, raised prices for state-run services, privatised the state-owned telephone company and instituted a wage freeze. Unemployment rose but soaraway inflation stopped.

As leader of the developing world's greatest economic success story in the 1990s, Menem was instrumental in establishing the South American common market Mercosur (along with Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) and campaigned for Latin America to have a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.

He was the first Argentine President to visit London after the Falklands War and built up strong relations with the United States. Argentina, under Menem, was the only Latin American country to send military support to the 1991 Gulf War.

He engineered a change in the constitution to allow him to be re-elected in 1995 but could not repeat the trick in 1999. Some of his supporters had turned against him, including Eduardo Duhalde, the Peronist governor of Buenos Aires.

His former economic minister Domingo Cavallo split from him and formed his own party. The announcement that he would not run was taken by some as a signal that his political career was over but Duhalde was crushed in the 1999 elections by Fernando de la Rua.

Menem announced he would be back in the next presidential race. In the political chaos that followed the forced resignation of de la Rua and the eventual return to office of Duhalde, Menem's 10 years began to seem like a model of stability. Former Grand Prix racing driving star Carlos Reutemann last month pulled out of contesting a Peronist primary with Menem.

As social unrest continues, Menem, like most Argentine politicians, has faced the threat of saucepan-brandishing protesters calling for the political dinosaurs to go. When leaving his home province, he has to travel in a security van with bodyguards.

"Only three months ago, Menem did not stand a chance," says Rouvier. "Now he does, even amid new corruption allegations. Argentines may say he is to blame for all their troubles. But if there are no new options when they vote, they may choose him after all."