Carlos Menem

Carlos Saúl Menem ( listen) (Anillaco, La Rioja; 2 July 1930-Buenos Aires, 14 February 2021) was an Argentine lawyer and politician, president of the Argentine Nation between 1989 and 1999 and governor of the province of La Rioja in the periods 1973-1976 and 1983-1989. From 2005 to 2021 he was a national senator, representing the province of La Rioja.

The last Argentine dictatorship kept him imprisoned without trial for a year and eight months. He took office as president on July 8, 1989, succeeding Raúl Alfonsín, after winning the 1989 presidential elections. Menem held the position until December 10, 1999, being the person who has held the Argentine constitutional head of state for the longest time in continuous mode, for 10 years, 5 months and 2 days. The historical period that encompassed his presidency is often called "Menemism" (a term also used to refer to the ideological movement around his figure).

During his first term, he took office in the midst of a hyperinflationary process. The Menem administration implemented economic policies such as massive privatizations and a currency regime of convertibility with the dollar, designed by Economy Minister Domingo Cavallo. Economically, his policies reduced inflation to historic lows close to zero, GDP per capita went from $8,149 in 1989 to $10,935 in 1999, foreign debt went from $65 billion to $151 billion, and was reduced to industrial production in half (from 42% to 26% of GDP). Socially, the policies of the Menem government introduced massive unemployment (two digits), a phenomenon that the country was not aware of, which led to an exponential growth in crime, which went from 560,000 crimes in 1990 to just over 1 million in 1999. Unregistered employment increased from 32% to 37.6%, and a large sector of people excluded from the labor market was generated, which in turn led to the appearance of the so-called piquetero movement.

Internationally, Menem arranged to go to war with Iraq in the Gulf War, without authorization from Congress, and smuggled weapons to Croatia and Bosnia in the Yugoslav wars. During his administration, there were terrorist attacks of foreign origin against the Israeli embassy in Argentina and the AMIA, as well as the intentional blowing up of the Río Tercero arms factory, which caused dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries.

Politically, Menem surprised his own and others, making an alliance with anti-Peronist forces and sectors, such as the Union of the Democratic Center and right-wing liberalism. After being elected president, he made a radical change in his ideological and symbolic positions, which allowed him to enjoy broad support in the upper-class sectors, which initially rejected him outright. Menem's positions led to a split in the Justicialista Party, and for the first time in Argentine history the main competitor against Menem in the 1995 elections was another Peronist, José Octavio Bordón. He faced the last military coup in Argentine history, managing to defeat the rebel forces.

The independence of the Judiciary was highly questioned, since it appointed five of the nine Supreme Court magistrates, who, although they were legally appointed, actually functioned as an "automatic majority" in favor of the government. Also notable in his first term was the extensive Argentine constitutional reform of 1994, carried out on the basis of a programmatic agreement between the two major Argentine political parties, which allowed the country to be endowed with a Constitution accepted by all political forces, something that It had not happened since 1956.

The reform enabled Menem to run for re-election for a shortened second term, winning by a wide margin in the 1995 elections. Menem's second term was marked by the onset of an economic recession. Menem's presidency was characterized by various controversies and numerous corruption scandals that plagued the government, resulting in even being convicted of embezzlement.

Menem was succeeded in 1999 by the radical Fernando de la Rúa, after Peronism lost the presidential elections. De la Rúa preserved the convertibility regime, like Menem, and Cavallo as Minister of Economy.

In 2001 the convertibility regime exploded due to the fiscal deficit, leading to the resignation of the De la Rúa government and an economic and social crisis, considered the most serious in Argentine history. Menem again sought the presidency in the 2003 elections, in which the Justicialista Party divided and two other candidates (Néstor Kirchner and Adolfo Rodríguez Saá) presented themselves under the banner of Peronism. Although Menem was the candidate with the most votes with 24.45% of the preferences, two points above Kirchner, he failed to achieve the required majority to be elected in the first round, organizing a second round between Menem and Kirchner. With the polls predicting a crushing electoral defeat, Menem did not appear for the ballot, and Kirchner was thus elected.

Subsequently, Menem remained active in politics as an opponent of Kirchnerism within the PJ, being elected national senator of the majority for La Rioja in the 2005 elections, being re-elected in 2011. In 2007 he ran for the last governorship of La Rioja time, supported by the Loyalty and Dignity party, ranking third, behind two other Justicialist candidates.

During the presidency of Mauricio Macri, in the 2017 elections, he sought his second re-election as senator and managed to gain access to the bench by the minority, joining the "Argentina Federal" interblock, led by Miguel Ángel Pichetto and facing Kirchnerism At the end of 2019, he approached the government of Mauricio Macri, but later announced his adhesion to the Frente de Todos coalition, which led Alberto Fernández-Cristina Fernández de Kirchner as presidential ticket. After the electoral victory, Menem joined the ruling bloc of the Frente de Todos in the Senate.

Menem passed away on February 14, 2021 at the age of 90. The funeral was held in the Blue Room of the National Congress on the same day of his death.

Early Years

Carlos Saúl Menem was born in the small town of Anillaco, Castro Barros Department, La Rioja province, Argentina, on July 2, 1930. His parents, Saúl Menehem (1898-1975) and Mohibe Akil (1907-1977), were both of Syrian origin and practitioners of the Sunni Muslim religion, and had emigrated to Argentina in the 1910s. His father's surname, "Menehem", was translated into Spanish as "Menem" by the immigration authorities when he arrived in country. Menem completed his primary and secondary studies in his native province, in both cases in public schools. He practiced the Islamic religion until he decided to convert to Catholicism in his youth. At that time, a constitutional precept was in force that established that the president of the Argentine Nation should profess the Roman Catholic faith. The constitutional reform promoted by his government in 1994, although it did not strictly eliminate the confessional nature of the Argentine State, It did abolish the requirement that the president be Catholic.

Education and early political career

He studied law at the Law School of the National University of Córdoba between 1949 and 1955. In 1951, during a trip to the Federal Capital of the university basketball team in which he played, Menem met the president Juan Domingo Perón and his wife, Eva Duarte, beginning their political activism in the Peronist movement. He graduated as a lawyer in 1955, two months before the coup d'état that overthrew the Perón government and banned Peronism from Argentine political life. During the subsequent military dictatorship, Menem was arrested in 1956, accused of participating in a Peronist conspiracy to overthrow the government.

After his release, in 1957, he clandestinely founded the Peronist Youth of La Rioja, of which he was its first president, and contributed legal assistance to the General Confederation of Labor (CGT). In the provincial elections of In 1962 he presented himself as a candidate for provincial deputy of La Rioja for the Castro Barros Department. Given the proscription of the Justicialista Party, Menem presented himself under the list of the Unión Popular (UP) party. Although he was elected deputy, the coup that took place ten days after the elections annulled his victory and prevented him from taking office.

In 1963 he was elected president of the Justicialista Party of La Rioja. Menem was postulated as a candidate for governor of La Rioja in 1963 under the seal of the UP. However, the new disqualification of Peronism to present candidacies led Perón to proclaim abstention and call for a blank vote, ordering Peronists not to present themselves under other party acronyms. Menem complied with Perón's order and withdrew his candidacy. In 1964, as president of the Rioja Justicialismo, he visited Perón in his exile in Spain. That same year he traveled to Syria, his parents' native country, where he met Zulema Fátima Yoma, a Muslim also from La Rioja, whom she would marry.

On November 17, 1972, Menem was a passenger on the flight that brought Perón back from Spain to Argentina.

First government of La Rioja: 1973-1976

Rise to power

Menem meeting with Héctor José Cámpora, president-elect, after his victory in the 1973 elections.

With the legalization of Peronism in 1972 and the call for free elections, Menem returned to political activity definitively. His popularity within La Rioja and relationships within the national Peronist Youth led him to head the La Rioja Justicialista Party as a candidate for governor at the relatively young age of forty-three. At the national level, the Justicialist Liberation Front (FREJULI) had been formed, which supported the presidential candidacy of Héctor José Cámpora at the national level, due to the fact that the ruling military junta prevented the candidacy of Perón himself and established a system of electoral second round or runoff for the elections of president, governors and senators, in the event that no formula achieves the absolute majority of votes in the first instance. However, said front had not come to consolidate at the provincial level, so Menem attended alone.

Menem's running mate and candidate for lieutenant governor was Libardo Sánchez, a native of Chilecito Department and an orthodox Peronist seen as an internal opponent of Menem. Sectors of the Peronist Youth sought to impose the candidacy for lieutenant governor of the combative trade unionist Ramón Torres, without success. However, they were awarded first place on the list for national deputies for the La Rioja district, the candidacy falling to the person of Juana Romero, who was one of the only seventeen women representatives in the National Congress during the subsequent period. Due to this, the JP supported Menem's candidacy despite not being represented in the executive formula.

Menem carried out a personalist campaign, and the media drew comparisons between him and the caudillo Facundo Quiroga (1788-1835), who had led La Rioja during the Argentine civil wars, mainly due to his physical appearance, with long sideburns (which would be his most outstanding personal brand). In the provincial elections of La Rioja on March 11, 1973 and despite running with the disadvantage of not having formed FREJULI at the provincial level, the Menem-Sánchez formula was elected by an overwhelming margin by obtaining 57.49% of the votes against the 29.06% obtained by the binomial of the Radical Civic Union (UCR). The Justicialist coalition also obtained 20 of the 25 seats in the Provincial Legislature. Menem was the youngest governor of the twenty-two elected that year and one of the only seven whose election was defined in the first round, without the need to go to a runoff.

Menem assumed the governorship of La Rioja on May 25, 1973, simultaneously with the national authorities, from the de facto inspector Julio Luchesi. However, he took it upon himself to organize a massive separate inauguration celebration on June 9, a couple of weeks later, in commemoration of the seventeenth anniversary of the 1956 uprising led by Juan José Valle with the aim of overthrowing the dictatorship of the Revolución Libertadora. The event took place in San Antonio, the hometown of Facundo Quiroga, with just over two hundred inhabitants, and was extremely well attended, highlighting the presence of Bishop Enrique Angelelli and Vice President of the Nation Vicente Solano Lima. During his The speech emphasized the Peronist loyalty of President Cámpora, denounced that the military regime was leaving him with a bankrupt economy, and made several social promises. After his presidency, the term "Lealtad" within Peronism would be strongly associated with Menem, partly due to the list with which the leadership of the Rioja PJ (Loyalty and Unity) would later win, the coalition with which he disputed the presidency ia for the last time (Front for Loyalty), and the provincial party that he would lead (Loyalty and Dignity).

Government Summary

At the time Menem assumed the governorship, La Rioja was considered one of the poorest and most backward provinces in Argentina, as well as the third least populated district, according to the 1970 census, with 136,237 inhabitants (only by in front of Santa Cruz and the then National Territory of Tierra del Fuego). agrarian reform and a socialization of the economy. The first days of Menem's term were marked by controversy after he sent a bill to the Provincial Legislature with the aim of fulfilling his campaign promise to expropriate the Azzallini large estate, located in the town of Aminga, to transfer it to the CODETRAL Work Cooperative (Aminga Ltda. Workers Cooperative). The measure, supported by Bishop Angelelli as a long demand for said town, was hampered by the refusal of some legislators from the pro-government bloc, with numerous sources of violence between supporters and detractors of the expropriation between June 13 and September 29. July of that year. Finally, it was successfully expropriated, while a sector of the Justicialist bench joined the radical bench and approved a differentiated bill, which did not grant the land concession to the cooperative, this project being endorsed by Menem at the end of August.

Menem decided to resume the government plan of Guillermo Iribarren, the de facto federal controller who governed from 1967 until his death in 1971 (his brother, Eduardo Menem, who served as minister of said government, held the La Riojan head of government briefly until the appointment of a new controller). partial public employment, tax exemptions, money laundering exclusively for La Rioja, 100% tax exemption for mining, solution to the land problem, the water problem, a Public Health Plan and the generation of jobs. Said plan, considered as the trigger for a "Riojan miracle", would be the basis for the work of the Menem government. Menem's first term as governor of La Rioja was extremely popular, facilitating his permanence at the command of local Peronism for decades. However, a fundamental difference with Iribarren's plan was the considerable growth in public employment seen from Menem's arrival in the governorship onwards^{[citation required]}, becoming the province with the second highest percentage of population dependent on the state, after Formosa.

Within national politics, Menem showed an initial inclination towards the so-called revolutionary tendency of Peronism (abbreviated as the Tendencia), a current linked to the political left of the justicialist movement that was openly confronted with the so-called orthodox sector, embodied in the majority of the Peronist unions. However, from the end of that year, after Perón's return to power by an overwhelming margin and the political turn against the leftist sector by his government (especially after his death and the arrival of his wife, María Estela Martínez de Perón, nicknamed Isabel, to the presidency) Menem quickly abandoned his previous rapprochement. The other governors linked to the Tendencia: Oscar Bidegain from Buenos Aires, Ricardo Obregón Cano from Cordoba, Alberto Martínez Baca from Mendoza, Antenor Gauna from Formosa, Miguel Ragone from Salta and Jorge Cepernic from Santa Cruz were either forced to resign or suffered federal intervention in their government at the end of 1973 and then throughout the year 1974. His distance with the left reached a climax when on August 9, 1975 he publicly proclaimed his intention that Isabel seek re-election in 1977.

After his government, there are serious questions within Peronism about his relationship with Perón, as well as with his wife Isabel, who was the first Argentinian president from La Rioja, there being numerous evidence that their relationship was not really good with neither of them. According to some sources, Perón would have referred to Menem as "clown" or "mamarracho" after a meeting of justicialist governors.

Coup and deposition

Like all the authorities elected in 1973, Menem was unable to finish his mandate due to the coup d'état of March 24, 1976, which once again evicted the justicialismo from power, dissolved all the legislative authorities and intervened in all the districts that still remained. they had not been intervened by then. According to the La Rioja historian Roberto Rojo, a group of soldiers, among whom was who would later be head of the Army César Milani, entered the provincial government house hoping that Menem would put up resistance. However, according to Rojo, the governor received them peacefully, greeted each of them, and was arrested without incident, stating that "they would meet again" when he was "president of the Nation". Menem was replaced by Colonel Osvaldo Battaglia, who took over as de facto controller.

In 1980, with Menem still detained by the regime, the de facto government granted the governors ousted in the coup d'état a pension for their term in office, Menem being one of the beneficiaries. In 2003 there would be complaints about Menem's alleged omission of said retirement in his sworn statement.

During the dictatorship

Menem in 1982.

After his dismissal as provincial governor, Menem spent a week confined in the 15th Infantry Regiment of La Rioja, before being transferred to the ship 33 Orientales, moored in Buenos Aires. During his stay On the ship, he shared a cabin with Pedro Eladio Vázquez, Perón's personal doctor, and met again with various ministers of the deposed government (Antonio Cafiero, Miguel Unamuno, José Deheza and Pedro Arrighi), as well as union leaders (Jorge Alberto Triaca, Diego Ibáñez and Lorenzo Miguel). The former interim president Raúl Lastiri, the diplomat Jorge Vázquez and the journalist Osvaldo Papaleo were also imprisoned there. In July 1976 he was transferred to a permanent detention center in Magdalena. In 1977 the de facto government of Jorge Rafael Videla rejected his request to be released from prison to attend the funeral of his mother, Mohibe Akil, after her death at the age of seventy.

After a little more than two years in detention, he was finally placed under a regime of "forced residence" on July 29, 1978. This system established that he had to reside permanently in a city that was not in his province of origin. Menem chose the town of Mar del Plata in Buenos Aires. During his stay in that city, Menem maintained ties with members of the Justicialist trade unionism such as Abdul Saravia and Diego Ibáñez, who would later integrate his political space, and maintained a friendly relationship with the member of the Emilio Eduardo Massera Military Junta, who intended to launch himself into constitutional politics (without success). He also got together with show business figures such as the vedette Susana Giménez, the boxer Carlos Monzón and the comedian Alberto Olmedo.

His public activity led the Ministry of the Interior to decide that he could not remain in Mar del Plata and forced him to move again, this time to the city of Tandil, also in Buenos Aires, where he would have to report daily to the police chief local, Hugo Zamora. There he maintained a close personal relationship with Zamora, who would be named police chief of La Rioja after Menem's arrival at the provincial government. He ended his period of forced domicile in February 1980, after nineteen months, and moved to Buenos Aires, but quickly returned to La Rioja. There he made the decision to restart his political activity, despite the fact that the military government had prohibited it, which caused him to be arrested again in September of the same year. With his second arrest, he was once again placed under the forced residence system, being transferred to the town of Las Lomitas, in the province of Formosa.

After spending a few days locked up in the local Gendarmerie headquarters, he was lodged in the private home of the Meza family, who had volunteered to host him. There he had an affair with a rural teacher twenty-two years his junior, Martha Meza, daughter of his hosts, with whom he had an unrecognized son, Carlos Nair. Meza would have his own political career as a provincial deputy for Formosa and, later,, national, and would maintain a controversial legal dispute with Menem over the parentage of his son, until his suicide on January 12, 2003. Entering the 1980s, after the military government began to release political prisoners from the previous constitutional government, the Justicialist leadership legally pressured Menem's situation, granting him freedom of movement on January 8, 1981. He finally moved to La Rioja, settling there permanently a few months later.

With the defeat of the military government in the Malvinas war, the de facto president, Reynaldo Bignone, took office, beginning a transition to democracy. In October 1982, Menem gave an interview to the magazine Extra, in which he described his points of view regarding the justicialist verticalism and supported the legal leadership of the PJ by Isabel Perón, although he stated in favor of remaining neutral in intra-party tensions, ceding power to Deolindo Bittel and that the divergent lines respect the results of the internal elections and support the winning candidates, in addition to expressing their desire that the events that occurred during the Military dictatorship. He also did not reject an investigation into the events that occurred between 1973 and 1976. He was in favor of a temporary return to the 1853 constitution, but with the aim of seeking a new reform later.

In September 1983, he traveled to Madrid and tried to meet with Isabel Perón, but she refused to see him.

Second governorship of La Rioja: 1983-1989

Election victory

Results by department of the provincial elections of La Rioja of 1983 and 1987. In both cases, Menem beat in all departments (in blue) less in General Angel V. Peñaloza (in Red), where he won his radical opponent.

The transition to democracy culminated in the general elections of 1983. Facing the internal elections of the Justicialista Party, Menem set up the "Loyalty and Dignity" list, in which he had successfully managed to bring together a large part of the factions internal to the party (the unions, the Peronist Youth, the women's branch and political prisoners). With this armament, he successfully retained control of the La Rioja justicialismo and ran again for the governorship, with the radical Raúl Alfredo Galván as the main opponent. His running mate was Alberto Cavero.

Cover of a Menem interview Revista Gente after his victory in the provincial elections of 1983.

Menem carried out an aggressive campaign, seeking a polarizing effect by using derogatory terms to refer to his radical opponents, whom he described as "unpatrias, gorillas and oligarchs." Radicalism, while focusing its campaign on nonviolence and mutual respect, described Menem as "an authoritarian demagogue." During a campaign event, Menem relativized the existence of a democracy if there were no mechanisms to guarantee social justice, with the phrase "Why do we want freedom if we don't have to eat?" Despite his polarizing and differentiating discourse, Menem was essentially ideologically ambiguous, in an attempt to attract votes to both the left and right of Peronism, and constantly alluded to electorates from other parties, such as popular socialism and the FIP..

The elections took place on October 30. At the national level, the radical presidential candidate Raúl Alfonsín triumphed, defeating the Justicialist candidate Ítalo Lúder by a comfortable margin. In La Rioja, however, the result was not replicated and in a climate of extreme polarization, Menem was elected governor for the second time with 56.51% of the vote (50,466 votes) followed by 39.87% (35,605 votes) obtained by Galván, prevailing in all departments except General Ángel V. Peñaloza. The PJ won three quarters of the seats in the provincial Chamber of Deputies with 21 seats against 4 for the UCR. Although Lúder prevailed in La Rioja, there was a slight shortfall in the ballot in favor of Menem: approximately between 1,800 and 3,000 people voted only for him and not for the rest of the Justicialist ballot (2,393 did not vote for Lúder in the presidential election, 3,050 they did not vote for the list of national deputies headed by Bernardo Eligio Herrera, and in 1881 they did not vote for the candidates for provincial deputies).

Two weeks after his victory, Menem met with Alfonsín, as president and governor-elect. A photograph of the meeting, which was published in the national and provincial media, sparked criticism for both figures: Justicialismo politicians criticized Menem for meeting with Alfonsín after learning of his victory, while local radicalism was baffled by the meeting and stated that this was a "disrespect" to the radical militancy of La Rioja. Menem dismissed the criticism, described the interview as "really positive for democracy and for the province of La Rioja," and made an indirect allusion to Bercovich, whose sixteen-point defeat to the radical Eduardo Angeloz had been the biggest setback for the justicialismo in government level, stating that he was in dialogue "with the victors, not with the defeated". there would be no political or economic discrimination for the provinces governed by the PJ.

Menem was sworn in on December 10, 1983, receiving the governorship from the de facto inspector Guillermo Piastrellini. In his inauguration he gave the following message: «the government will defend without concessions and taking the necessary measures the right of all La Rioja to an economic income that allows them to support their family with dignity, the right of all La Rioja to have an adequate roof for their condition as a human being, the right of every La Riojan to have qualified health care and the right of every La Rioja to study, improve and fulfill themselves according to their vocation. This means that social balance will be a natural consequence of social justice."

Governing period

Menem in 1984.

Menem kept numerous officials from the provincial administration of the military regime in their posts,^{[citation needed]}, as well as incorporating leaders of radicalism, the Integration Movement and Development, the Popular Left Front, and the Christian Democratic Party. These measures, in addition to consolidating his hegemony within La Rioja justicialismo as a conciliatory leader, caused rapid fractures within the non-Peronist parties and, consequently, weakened the provincial opposition.

From his second governorship, a visit to the province in 1986 by United States Senator Edward Kennedy stands out, who expressed his satisfaction with said visit and praised the governor. His arrival was supposedly in response to concerns by the US government regarding Menem's growth in power within the Justicialista Party and the anti-imperialist rhetoric he had used in his electoral campaigns. After Kennedy's visit, Menem notoriously relaxed his views on the United States, declaring: "The United States, whether we like it or not, is a reality that weighs heavily on Argentina and on all countries in the world, without exception. By this I mean that Kennedy is not Rockefeller and vice versa, even though they are supposed to be components of the same group". with the United States senator. This restructuring of the state financial system contributed to improving the quality of the credit portfolio of retail banks and their level of capitalization. In addition, it improved its efficiency.

Constitutional reform and reelection

The statute of the military government under which Menem had been elected governor in 1973 allowed for the re-election of the provincial governor for a second consecutive term. However, that statute had expired de jure in 1981 (with its de facto validity actually annulled after the 1976 coup), and Menem was elected in 1983 under the constitution Provincial Act of 1855, which established that the governor could not be reelected consecutively. At the same time that the midterm legislative elections were being held, Menem called for elections for a provincial constituent convention to reform the magna carta. Menem's Justicialism obtained victory in these elections by a comfortable margin, allowing the Menem government a great margin of maneuver in the preparation of the new constitution. This increased the number of members of the provincial legislature and enabled the re-election of the governor and lieutenant governor without term limits. With this reform and due to the acute crisis facing the Alfonsín government, Menem was overwhelmingly re-elected in the 1987 elections., obtaining 62.41% of the votes against 33.88% for Enrique Peñaloza Camet, his radical opponent, who campaigned aggressively accusing Menem of having a style of government very similar to his de facto predecessor. , Piastrellini. Menem delayed the elections for governor from those for provincial deputies, which took place months later, with an overwhelming victory for the PJ, which retained two-thirds of the legislative power.

1989 presidential election

Justicialist primary of 1988

Results by province of the primary elections of the Justice Party of 1988. Menem-Duhalde Cafiero-De la Sota

Since his victory in the 1983 La Rioja gubernatorial elections, Menem dedicated a large part of his tenure as governor to building a national image that would allow him to emerge as a possible presidential candidate within the Justicialismo, an intention that was evidenced by his numerous visits to other provinces between 1984 and 1988, during which he sought to establish face-to-face contact with the local population. Within La Rioja he faced his electoral campaigns promising the Rioja population that a presidential project would favor the province. He slowly acquired some power within of the national PJ due to his success in preserving his personal political hegemony despite the deep divisions that afflicted the party during the period 1983-1987. Menem had been part of the so-called "Peronist renewal" led at the national level by Antonio Cafiero (elected governor of Buenos Aires in 1987). The renovation coupled party democratization, allowed allowing members to vote in internal elections, so that in mid-1988 the first direct presidential primary in the history of Peronism was held.

Menem together with Antonio Cafiero, his competitor at the 1988 justice system. It was the only time the PJ chose its presidential candidate directly.

By then, Menem and Cafiero were publicly seen as the two greatest figures capable of obtaining the presidential candidacy. Menem agreed to dispute an internal one against Cafiero, but Julio Mera Figueroa, Menem's political operator, imposed as a condition that it be carried out under a "short ticket" system, disputing only the presidential candidacy without settling legislative or governmental positions, a proposal that was seen by Cafiero as an attempt to "liquefy" the weight of the party apparatus, mostly favorable to the governor of Buenos Aires. Menem's running mate was Eduardo Duhalde, former mayor of the Buenos Aires town of Lomas de Zamora, while the de Cafiero was the former candidate for governor of Córdoba, José Manuel de la Sota.

At the time of the election, Cafiero's victory was considered assured due to his consolidated image at the national level, having also obtained the governorship of the most populous province in the country just a few months ago. Buenos Aires and Córdoba, the districts of origin of Cafiero and De la Sota, together housed more than half of the list of PJ affiliates, while La Rioja barely had 2%. In addition, Cafiero's image as a renovating leader seemed counterbalancing Menem, seen as a "retrograde populist". However, during the campaign period, numerous events favored the La Rioja governor. Duhalde's participation as a pre-candidate for vice president gave the nascent Menemism the gradual appearance of its own electoral weight in the crucial Buenos Aires suburbs. He also enjoyed the key support of the announcer Juan Carlos Rousselot, mayor of Morón.Cafiero himself would write in his personal diary that some surveys predicted a defeat in the period prior to the internship.

Menem focused his campaign on profiling himself as an "anti-system" candidate, while Cafiero, as president of the Justicialista Party, had maintained policies of understanding and rapprochement with the Alfonsín government, which caused him to also be seen as a continuist of policies of the weakened alfoninismo. Despite the fact that Menem himself had shown a similar attitude towards Alfonsín during his first term as governor, in the face of the internal elections he distanced himself from him along with his distance from the Cafiero sector. Likewise, the relative stability of La Rioja, as well as its scant importance in the political panorama, allowed Menem to present himself as a new figure before the vast majority of the public, while Cafiero was disadvantaged by the deterioration of the economic situation, which affected mainly to the province of Buenos Aires, which he governed. Two days before the primary was held, Menem ended his campaign with a a surprisingly well-attended event at the Antonio Vespucio Liberti Stadium, Capital Federal, which registered a presence of 60,000 people, disconcerting the cafierista leadership.

On Saturday, July 9, 1988, the primary election took place with a surprising and comfortable victory for the Menem-Duhalde formula, which obtained 53.94% of the votes against 46.06% for the Cafiero-De formula the Knave The pair led by Menem swept the Buenos Aires suburbs (highlighting their victory in Lomas de Zamora, La Matanza and Morón) and prevailed in eighteen of the twenty-four national districts, while Cafiero only triumphed in the Federal Capital, Córdoba, Formosa, Misiones, Salta and Santiago del Estero. The greatest support came from Argentine Patagonia and the Cuyo region, where Menem comfortably surpassed 75% of the vote in most provinces, while the election was particularly competitive in the far north of Argentina, where four of the six districts in which the formula was defeated. In La Rioja, Menem obtained 36,949 votes against 564 for Cafiero, 98.50% of the votes. Cafiero conceded defeat in the early morning of July 10.

Campaign and elections

Boleta de la formula Menem-Duhalde en la provincia de Buenos Aires.

In view of the presidential elections, the Justicialista Party decided to return to the frontist strategy of 1973, configuring an alliance with smaller parties called the Justicialista Popular Unity Front (FREJUPO). It was made up, in addition to the PJ, by the Intransigent Party (PI), headed by Oscar Alende, the Integration and Development Movement (MID), the Christian Democratic Party (PDC), the Labor and People's Party (PTP), the Constitutional Nationalist Party (PNC), the Popular Line Movement (MOLIPO) and the Patriotic Liberation Movement (MPL). The different district lists with candidates for the Electoral College were made up of members of the front parties, in addition to the Justicialismo, and many prominent leaders of the most important parties (such as the MID), would hold positions in the subsequent management of the PJ government.

After the primary loss, Cafiero assured "his full support" to Menem's candidacy, and headed the list for electors for president in the province of Buenos Aires. Juan Carlos Rousselot, César Arias, José Luis Barrionuevo, and Diego Ibáñez, figures who had played a transcendental role in shaping Menem's political space outside of La Rioja, made up the top ten positions. Shortly before the election a scandal broke out of corruption and on April 19, 1989, Rousselot was removed from his position as mayor of Morón for alleged financial irregularities and replaced by Arias, although he would return to the mayorship in the next elections.

Despite the country's complicated economic situation, and the overwhelming victory of the PJ in the 1987 legislative elections, Menem's victory in the Justicialist primary came to briefly cast doubt on his chances of victory. Virtually all the electoral polls of the time predicted a close competition between Menem and the radicalismo candidate, Eduardo Angeloz, who had formed an alliance with right-wing provincial political parties, and highlighted a high percentage of undecideds, between a quarter and a third of the electorate. However, Menem remained first, with a comfortable floor of between 32.4 and 39.4% between April and May. Angeloz, strongly anti-Peronist, and one of the greatest exponents of the neoliberal wing of the UCR, had reached the candidacy for being one of the only two radical governors (together with Horacio Massaccesi from Río Negro) who had successfully resisted the wave of Justicialist triumphs in 1987. His economic program consisted of a significant reduction in public spending, committing to apply the "Lápiz Rojo". The conservative economist Álvaro Alsogaray, who was running for a coalition of liberal parties, maintained a significant electoral floor, between 7.9 and 9%.

Menem launched his campaign making very vague economic proposals, which allowed him to capture a much broader electorate than his (mostly liberal) opponents. It was mostly populist proselytizing, highlighting slogans such as "The salary is coming!" or "Let's make the Productive Revolution!" However, probably Menem's most famous campaign slogan, which would be widely remembered later, was "Follow me, I will not disappoint you" on a poster with Menem's photograph and the phrase below. Menem also appealed to the religious vote, making use of biblical quotes, highlighting "Argentina, get up and go" and the expression "God vomits the lukewarm". The Menem campaign also included the jingle "Valerosos Corazones"; composed by Litto Nebbia and performed by Silvia Garré.

Photograph by Menem, 1989.

Despite Menem's discretion when dealing with economic issues, the possibility that he was a "covert neoliberal" candidate was considered even before the elections by some media and figures from the political left. The Trotskyist newspaper Prensa Obrera, linked to the Partido Obrero (PO), which was running Jorge Altamira as a candidate for president, stated that Menem was really a conservative politician, and highlighted the phrase "Vote a Menem and you will get an Alsogaray", in an article published in March 1989. At the time of its publication, the article sparked criticism and ridicule from Peronist leaders, but later it would acquire validity when Menem began a rapprochement with sectors of Argentine neoliberalism once in power, among which Alsogaray and his daughter, María Julia, would mainly stand out.

The electoral trend was enormously reversed in favor of Menem when, beginning in February 1989, surprising financial movements occurred that triggered a hyperinflationary process. After a sharp drop in the Central Bank's reserves, the US dollar had an increase of around 40% against the Argentine austral as of February 7, a moment known as "Black Tuesday". The sudden decline in the value of the austral threatened the tenuous financial stability of the country, and the World Bank cut a large tranche of a loan package agreed in 1988, causing the value of the austral to plummet: the dollar went from trading to 17 australes in January, to trade at more than 100 australes by the middle of the year. Inflation, which was between 5-10% in February, increased to 78.5% for May. In the midst of a practically unsustainable economic situation, the Alfonsín government brought forward the elections to May 14, when they should have taken place in October.

A month before the elections, the television program Nuevo Tiempo invited Menem and Angeloz to hold a presidential debate on May 8, a week before the elections. Had it been held, it would have been the first televised presidential debate in Argentine history. Angeloz immediately confirmed his presence, while Menem refused to do so and kept a vague stance. Finally, on the day of the debate, Angeloz was present and Menem finally confirmed his absence. The program, hosted by Bernardo Neustadt, decided to hold the debate anyway, simply constituting an interview with Angeloz while he occupied a podium with his name, next to an empty platform for Menem. The radicalismo used the absence of Menem in the debate, portraying him in a television spot as an "empty chair" that did not debate with Angeloz because he did not have "the capacity to exercise the presidency". However, Menem's campaign effectively counterattacked the criticism with a new spot, in which several empty chairs appeared, while a voiceover said that these represented debates "that radicalism could not sustain: with businessmen, retirees, and workers", calling Argentines to " change history". As in previous elections, the candidates held massive campaign closing ceremonies.

On Sunday, May 14, the second presidential elections took place after the restoration of democracy. Menem obtained a wide victory with the lists of voters that supported him in the twenty-four districts, collecting 48.51% of the positive votes against the 37.10% achieved by the total lists that supported Angeloz, and 7.17 % obtained by Alsogaray. Menem obtained his own majority in the Electoral College, with 312 votes in his favor against 234 for Angeloz, 33 for Alsogaray and the rest distributed among minor parties. In contrast to the previous elections, which demonstrated a geographical division between provinces inclined to radicalism and provinces inclined to justicialismo, on that occasion the FREJUPO triumphed in almost the entire country, except in the radical strongholds of Córdoba and the Federal Capital, as well as in Salta. and Chubut, where Angeloz won. He managed to prevail in districts until then traditionally elusive to Peronism, such as Corrientes and Río Negro, and obtained more than two-thirds of the votes in his native province, La Rioja. The PJ and its electoral allies also managed to obtain control of the Congress of the Nation, with 128 deputies out of 254 and 28 senators out of 46.

Early transition

Menem, together with the outgoing President, Alfonsín, meet on 31 May 1989.

After learning of his victory, Menem summoned "all sectors" and issued his first public message since an act held in Catamarca in homage to the late governor Vicente Saadi. Despite the electoral advancement, Alfonsín had previously announced that he would complete his mandate as it was constitutionally established, on December 10, so there were still more than seven months left for the president and the elected deputies to take office. However, the resounding electoral defeat unleashed internal discussions within the radicalismo and growing external pressures for an early handover of command. In addition, the Justicialist victory did not stabilize the economy as Alfonsín had hoped and inflation continued to rise. The dollar doubled in value over the next week and on May 29 riots broke out in the poorest parts of several cities. Poverty began to grow exponentially: in May it was 25% and would increase to 47% throughout the year. Social conflicts continued to increase and on May 30, Alfonsín had to declare a state of siege over the entire national territory. A meeting with different business groups on June 9, which was intended to receive financial aid to end the mandate, did not prosper.. During said meeting, Héctor Magnetto, who would later maintain a close relationship with Menemism, would have ruled out Alfonsín as an "obstacle".

Menem assumes the presidency of Alfonsín on 8 July 1989.

Regarding the remaining period for his swearing in, Menem was extremely vague and discreet regarding the governability of Alfonsinism. Subsequently, he declared that he was "ready to take office". On June 6, he announced the composition of part of his cabinet, still in the making, six months before the expected handover of command, which was seen as a sign that he was proposing an early oath. At the time of the cabinet announcement, Menem was considering two figures for the key Ministry of Economy: the deputy Domingo Cavallo (who would later hold the position) and the engineer Miguel Roig. Roig was finally chosen, while Cavallo was given the Foreign Relations portfolio, which evidenced the weight that the economy would have in the international policy of the new government. By mid-June, the Ministry of Labor was the last to announce and it was speculated that Menem would choose a figure from the Peronist union movement.

The failure of a last meeting with the economic groups, which refused to give Alfonsín the necessary support to end his term, ended up weakening the government and, the next day, June 14, the president issued a message by national chain, announcing that it had resolved to "resign" to his position as of June 30 and hand over his position to Menem as president-elect. The use of the word "resign" and not "resign," as legally required, generated confusion and political disputes between both forces.

Shortly before Alfonsín publicly announced his "resignation," the radical leader Rodolfo Terragno traveled to La Rioja to negotiate with Menem in view of the imminent change of government. According to Terragno, during the meeting, which took place in the La Rioja government house, Menem was ultimately surprised by Alfonsín's intention to retire early and, despite his previous statements, declared that he was not prepared to assume so suddenly, given that he would assume an extremely difficult economic and political situation and would have to govern until December with a Chamber of Deputies in which radicalism still had the first minority. After considering the possibility that his brother, Eduardo Menem, provisional president of the Senate, temporarily assume the head of state until Menem's swearing in, it was resolved that the handover of command would be brought forward but, in turn, it would be organized with some time (a little over a month) so that Menem could prepare The conditions for the delivery of command were that the presidential band would be delivered by Alfonsín himself to avoid misunderstandings and that the UCR would approve all the s laws that the new president required until the elected legislature with a Justicialista majority swore him in office in December.

Menem, along with his wife Zulema Yoma, saluting on the balcony of the Casa Rosada, after his assumption as president.

Although the delivery was originally planned for June 30, Menem finally took office as president of the Argentine Nation on July 8, 1989, eight days later than expected, but five months and two days earlier than constitutionally established. The ceremony took place at the Palace of Congress of the Argentine Nation, and Alfonsín placed the presidential sash on Menem. It was the first presidential transition between two democratically elected presidents of different political parties, and historically it is considered that this moment consolidated democracy in Argentina. The role of the Justicialista Party, of its governors (especially Víctor Reviglio from Santa Fe), or of Menem himself in advancing the transfer of command continues to be the subject of controversy. In a later interview, Alfonsín claimed part of the responsibility by admitting that it could have been a mistake to have advanced the elections so much. Years later, During a speech, Menem committed a failed act by incidentally admitting to having "overthrown" the Alfonsín government, when he wanted to refer to the 1955 and 1962 coups that respectively overthrew Juan Domingo Perón and Arturo Frondizi, apologizing that he was confused because "both of them, Alfonsín and Frondizi, are radicals".

Menem swearing the new national constitution of Argentina in 1994. Palacio San José de Concepción del Uruguay (Entre Ríos).

Presidency of the Argentine Nation (1989-1999)

Carlos Menem assumed the presidency on July 8, 1989. It was then the first presidential succession between two constitutional presidents since 1928, and the first since 1916 between presidents of different political parties.

The beginning of a recession in the third quarter of 1998 and new accusations of corruption resulted in a decline in his popularity: after another failed attempt at constitutional reform, Menem ended his government on December 10, 1999, transferring him the command to the president-elect, the radical Fernando de la Rúa.

Economic policy

The main problem he had to face when assuming the presidency was that of an economy in crisis with hyperinflation and a deep recession. Within the framework of the strong hyperinflationary spiral that plagued Argentina since the last years of Alfonsín, Menem met in May 1989 with the board of directors of the economic, Bunge y Born, a few days after winning the elections. Miguel Ángel Roig was appointed Minister of Economy, who until then had served as General Executive Vice President of Bunge & Born and from his appointment he dedicated himself to designing the so-called & # 34; Plan BB & # 34;. Faced with the sudden death of Roig, Carlos Menem appointed the vice president of Bunge & Born, Nestor Rapanelli. The government partially adopted the principles of the Washington Consensus, for which it introduced a series of liberal reforms: the economy was deregulated, reducing quotas, tariffs, and import prohibitions, free pricing was established, and numerous state-owned companies were privatized.

With the approval of the State Reform Law in August 1989, he was authorized to privatize several state companies. The first privatizations were those of the Entel telephone company and that of Aerolíneas Argentinas. The privatizations were carried out quickly, seeking to achieve media revenues that would install the idea of the government's reformist will

Fixed telephone lines every 100 inhabitants from 1975 to 1999. The orange line indicates the time of privatization of ENTel.

In private hands, the telephone service in Argentina was modernized, making it much easier to obtain a telephone line that in the 80s could reach waiting lists of up to 3 years.

After privatization, the number of lines increased by 113% (between 1990 and 1999) to such an extent that the National Numbering Plan had to be modified to meet the high demand for new numbers and characteristics by area.

The road network, television channels (with the exception of ATC, today Channel 7), a large part of the railway networks, YPF and Gas del Estado were also privatized.

The income generated by the privatizations, the economic situation remained convulsed and at the end of 1989, a second hyperinflation occurred. Replacing Rapanelli, Erman González took over as Economy Minister, who promoted the Bonex Plan (abbreviation of BONos EXinternal), which consisted of the confiscation of fixed-term deposits and an exchange of them for long-term bonds in dollars.^{[citation required]} Likewise, He severely restricted the issue of money and reduced social spending. This plan aggravated the economic recession, but served to reduce inflation. The closure of productive units occurred, which, in some branches of activity, such as textiles, were massive, with the subsequent loss of jobs. It managed to reduce inflation that ended in 1990 at 2,314% per year. Inflation decreased until it reached values close to 5% per month in the last quarter of the year. The trade balance in 1990 obtained an extraordinary surplus. Exports were 34% higher than the previous year, while imports were only a third of those. For 1991, the elimination of the monetary update or deindexation was carried out, to prevent past inflation from moving forward.

In January 1991, Erman González resigned and Menem appointed Domingo Cavallo as economy minister, who established the Convertibility Law. This scheme included the creation of a new monetary sign: the convertible peso, which began to circulate in the country on January 1, 1992, and replaced the then current national currency, the austral, with an equivalent of 1 peso to 10 000 australes. Under this system, the Central Bank was obliged to support with its reserves an exchange relationship in which one dollar was worth the same as one peso; In this way, the issuance of banknotes was restricted as a means of financing the State. The application of the convertibility regime lasted until the Argentine crisis of late 2001 and early 2002.

In public services, privatizations produced quality improvements in some areas (electricity and telephony, among others) the number of users with drinking water and sewage decreased while after privatization the number increased rapidly. while in others the impact was negative, such as rail transport, the latter in particular due to the massive closure of long-distance passenger services. Although the privatized urban train services in the metropolitan area and cargo services in general registered slight improvements, finally with the 2001 crisis and the subsequent devaluation of the currency, the fragile contractual conditions that led the companies to bankruptcy were exposed, the subsequent emptying of its infrastructure and finally to a deterioration of the service partly sustained by subsidies.

All of these measures as a whole achieved economic stability without significant inflation that offered a favorable climate for the emergence of investment and the inflow of capital from other countries, producing a marked growth of the gross domestic product (GDP). The economic stability achieved during Menem's first term led to his re-election in 1995 with almost 50% of the vote. The fiscal improvement served to achieve the agreement of the Brady plan (with external creditors). The GDP increased 50% in 10 years and reached 288,194 million dollars in 1998. Product of consistent macroeconomic policies since the first quarter of 1990; over 39 quarters, 30 showed economic expansion, reversing the history of the previous 15 years of stagnation. After the departure of Cavallo, and the entry of Roque Fernández, the fiscal deficit was reduced, reaching the budgetary balance for 1995 of the order of a surplus of 0.3% of GDP, remaining in positive numbers until 1998.

However, economic growth was characterized by an increase in the service and agricultural sectors. When Menem took office, the unemployment and underemployment values had reached historic peaks (8.1% and 8.6% of the economically active population, respectively) in May 1989. After a period of slow decline (6.9 % and 8.3 % in May 1992), unemployment and underemployment grew again during the Tequila crisis, reaching a peak of 18.4 % and 11.3 % in May 1992. 1995, after which they dropped slightly to 12.4% and 13.6% in October 1998. By the end of his government, these figures were 13.8% and 14.3%.

By 1997 and 1998, poverty had affected more than 36% of the population (13.4 million people were below the poverty line). While 8.6% (3.2 million people) lived in indigence. In the northwest, northeast and Cuyo regions, poverty exceeded 50% of the population and indigence was close to 20%.

Between the end of 1989 and 1995, the net public debt of the National State fell by 3,765 million USD, from 96,472 million to 92,707 million, but this trend was reversed at the end of his term when the external debt increased up to US $145 billion in 2000.

Justice, defense and security policy

During his government, the number of members of the Supreme Court of Justice was modified by law, raising it to nine members. The press called this expanded court the automatic majority, arguing that in most controversial cases the votes of these five judges coincided with the government's position.

Flag recalling the 6 000 deaths in the Jewish holocaust and the deaths in the terrorist attacks carried out in Buenos Aires against the Embassy of Israel and AMIA.

During his tenure, Argentina was the target of two terrorist attacks: on March 17, 1992, the first attack against the Israeli embassy took place, where 22 people died, and on July 18, 1994, the AMIA attack took place (Argentine Israelite Mutual Association), which caused the death of 85 people. The investigation of the first attack was carried out by the Supreme Court of Justice, without ever being brought to trial. Regarding the second attack on the AMIA, when the trial took place between 2001 and 2003, a gigantic cover-up network was exposed that involved the judge in the case, prosecutors, intelligence services, then President Menem and senior officials. of his government, and even the president of the Delegation of Argentine Israeli Associations (DAIA), which led to a second trial for cover-up, which began in 2015 and had not yet ended as of October 2018.

After reaching an agreement with Raúl Alfonsín, leader of the UCR, he promoted the reform of the Constitution that was approved by the convention in 1994 and allowed Menem to be re-elected the following year.

He suspended compulsory military service. He pardoned soldiers from the last civil-military dictatorship (1976-1983) and militants from guerrilla organizations that had operated during the 1970s, which, however, did not calm the discontent of the military who later threatened another coup attempt.

On November 3, 1995, the deposits of the Río Tercero Military Factory exploded. It was suspected that it was carried out on purpose to hide a shortage of weapons (see section Public life after their presidencies).

Health and education policy

During his administration, the educational system was reformed at all levels with the enactment of the Federal Education Law in 1993 and the Higher Education Law in 1995. Nine national universities were created, mainly in Greater Buenos Aires. The teachers held a protest for two years, known as the White Tent in rejection of the Federal Education Law.

In 1998, after an interview with Pope John Paul II in Vatican City, Carlos Menem approved a decree declaring March 25 the Day of the Unborn Child in Argentina. During the first celebration, in In 1999, the president affirmed that "Argentina has placed among the priorities of its foreign policy, a firm and determined action in defense of life." It was in this context that Zulema Yoma, ex-wife of the president, decided tell in an interview that an abortion was performed with the support of Carlos Menem.

Menem, the U.S. Defense Secretary. U.S. William S. Cohen and his wife Janet on 15 November 1999.

Foreign Policy

Menem and President Clinton. The Menemist government is characterized by narrowing "carnal" relations with the United States.

In foreign policy, from the very beginning of his mandate an automatic alignment with the United States was promoted, in such a way that Argentina abandoned the Non-Aligned Movement. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Guido Di Tella, humorously referred to this alignment as "carnal relations", but later the term would be taken by critics of this international policy to refer to the itself in a denigrating way. The relations maintained by the Menem government with the United States caused Argentina to be named an important non-NATO ally in 1998, during the Bill Clinton administration.

On other levels, in 1991, Menem promoted the formation of Mercosur and reestablished diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom, interrupted since the Malvinas War, through the Madrid I and II Agreements.

Menem delivers command to Fernando de la Rúa after 10 years of government.

Corruption accusations

The allegations of corruption about his government did not prevent his administration from maintaining a favorable image due to its economic success. In 1993, his Minister of the Interior, Gustavo Béliz, resigned from his position and publicly declared that the president " was surrounded by corrupt people" .

Shortly after the implementation of the Bonex Plan, the Swiftgate took place, in which the American company Swift denounced being harmed in a commercial operation by not agreeing to grant a bribe. Swift turned to the US ambassador, Terence Todman, and the US government itself took action on the matter. Finally, at the beginning of 1991, the entire Menem cabinet resigned. It was during the aforementioned scandal that José Luis Manzano uttered his widespread phrase "I steal for the crown".

Cabinet of the 1st Period

Ministries of the Government of Carlos Menem
Portfolio	Owner	Period
Ministry of the Interior	Eduardo Bauzá Julio Mera Figueroa José Luis Manzano Gustavo Béliz Carlos Federico Ruckauf Carlos Vladimiro Corach	8 July 1989 - 15 December 1990 15 December 1990 - 12 August 1991 12 August 1991 - 4 December 1992 4 December 1992 - 23 August 1993 23 August 1993 - 9 January 1995 9 January 1995 - 8 July 1995
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Worship	Domingo Felipe Cavallo Guido Di Tella	8 July 1989 - 31 January 1991 31 January 1991 - 8 July 1995
Ministry of Defence	Italo Argentino Luder Humberto Romero Guido Di Tella Antonio Erman González Oscar Camilión	8 July 1989 - 26 January 1990 26 January 1990 - 31 January 1991 31 January 1991 - 1 March 1991 1 March 1991 - 9 December 1993 9 December 1993 - 8 July 1995
Ministry of Economy	Miguel Angel Roig Néstor Rapanelli Antonio Erman González Domingo Felipe Cavallo	8 July 1989 - 14 July 1989 14 July 1989 - 18 December 1989 18 December 1989 - 4 February 1991 4 February 1991 - 8 July 1995
Ministry of Justice, Security and Human Rights	León Carlos Arslanián Jorge Luis Maiorano Rodolfo Carlos Barra	8 July 1989 - 16 January 1992 16 January 1992 - 16 June 1994 16 June 1994 - 8 July 1995
Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security	Jorge Alberto Triaca Rodolfo Díaz Enrique Osvaldo Rodríguez Armando Caro Figueroa	8 July 1989 - 16 January 1992 16 January 1991 - 4 December 1992 4 December 1992 - 22 December 1993 22 December 1993 - 8 July 1995
Ministry of Health and Social Action	Julio Corzo Antonio Erman González Eduardo Bauzá Alberto Kohan Avelino Porto Julio César Aráoz Alberto Mazza	8 July 1989 - 23 September 1989 26 September 1989 - 14 December 1989 15 December 1989 - 20 September 1990 20 September 1990 - 16 January 1991 16 January 1991 - 3 December 1991 3 December 1991 - 22 April 1993 22 April 1993 - 8 July 1995
Ministry of Education	Antonio Salonia Jorge Alberto Rodríguez	8 July 1989 - 4 December 1992 4 December 1992 - 8 July 1995
Ministry of Public Works and Services	Roberto José Dromi	8 July 1989 - 4 January 1991

Cabinet of the 2nd Period

Ministries of the Government of Carlos Menem
Portfolio	Owner	Period
Chief of Cabinet of Ministers	Eduardo Bauzá Jorge Alberto Rodríguez	8 July 1995 - 4 December 1996 28 March 1996 - 10 December 1999
Ministry of the Interior	Carlos Vladimiro Corach	8 July 1995 - 10 December 1999
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Worship	Guido Di Tella	8 July 1995 - 10 December 1999
Ministry of Defence	Oscar Camilión Jorge Domínguez	8 July 1995 - 7 August 1996 7 August 1996 - 10 December 1999
Ministry of Economy and Public Works and Services	Domingo Felipe Cavallo Roque Fernández	8 July 1995 - 7 August 1996 7 August 1996 - 10 December 1999
Ministry of Justice, Security and Human Rights	Rodolfo Barra Elijah Jassan Raúl Granillo Ocampo	8 July 1995 - 10 July 1996 10 July 1996 - 25 June 1997 25 June 1997 - 10 December 1999
Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security	José Armando Caro Figueroa Antonio Erman González José Alberto Uriburu	8 July 1995 - 5 December 1997 5 December 1997 - 26 May 1999 26 May 1999 - 10 December 1999
Ministry of Health and Social Action	Alberto José Mazza	8 July 1995 - 10 December 1999
Ministry of Education	Jorge Alberto Rodríguez Susana Decibe Manuel García Solá	8 July 1995 - 28 March 1996 28 March 1996 - 7 May 1999 7 May 1999 - 10 December 1999

Death of his son Carlos

Zulema Yoma, first wife of Menem and mother ofCarlitos».

Her son Carlos Menem Jr., «Carlitos», died on March 15, 1995 along with race car driver Silvio Oltra during a helicopter ride, at the age of 26. The experts determined that the device fell when it hit high-voltage cables, but his mother, Zulema Yoma, insisted that her son had been attacked by projectiles and that the government hid the evidence of the fact because, according to her version, the death of her son it was planned by the president's entourage.

At first the president did not support his wife's theory, and shortly after their son's death, Zulema divorced him. She appeared as a plaintiff in the case, abandoning the theory of the accident.

The court filed the case in October 1998, considering that it was an accident, since the ship crashed after hitting high-voltage cables; but before Zulema Yoma's appeal, it was reconsidered by the Supreme Court, which in April 2001 decided to reject the reopening appeal. The case was reopened in 2010. On July 8, 2014, Menem stated that: " After inquiring and studying the facts and circumstances surrounding the cause —although this was not the case initially—, I came to the conclusion that the fall of the helicopter, and the consequent death of my son, was the result of an attack".

In addition to Zulema Yoma, various sectors also suspected that it was not an accident. They are based on the fact that the scrapping of the helicopter was done immediately, without the possibility of a new expert opinion; in that there were several deaths by murder or unclear causes of 14 people related to the investigation; and in the lack of concrete measures by the government to clarify the case.

Public life after their presidencies

In May 2001, he married former model (Miss Universe 1987) and Chilean television host Cecilia Bolocco, a marriage that lasted until February 2007, when divorce proceedings began. As a result of this union, a son was born, Máximo Menem Bolocco, in 2003.

Presidential candidacy in 2003

Electoral ballot for the elections of Argentina of 2003 with the Menem-Romero formula

On November 21, 2001, just released from house arrest for the illegal sale of arms to Ecuador, Menem launched his presidential candidacy in La Rioja, along with his then wife, Cecilia Bolocco.

In January 2003, the Justicialistas hoped to settle within their internal group which candidate would represent them in the next general elections. However, the National Congress of the Justicialista Party annulled the party internships and approved the system of "neolemas" through which he authorized Carlos Menem, Adolfo Rodríguez Saá and Néstor Kirchner to participate directly in the general election called for April 27. These new electoral participation rules were promoted by President Eduardo Duhalde, who promoted Kirchner's candidacy. Menem, on the other hand, wanted there to be inmates. Meanwhile, the electoral judge María Servini de Cubría accepted the appeal presented by Duhaldismo to the resolution that prohibits the use of neolemmas to settle the presidential formula of the Justicialista Party. Menem was unable to reverse the party decision through the courts.

In the elections, Menem, candidate of the "Frente por la Lealtad - Ucede" alliance, came first, with 4 740 907 votes (24.45%), and Kirchner, from the "Frente para la Victoria", seconded him, with 4 312 517 votes (22.24%). Third was the former radical Economy Minister Ricardo López Murphy, heading a dissident front, with 3,173,475 votes (16.37%); Adolfo Rodríguez Saa fourth, with 2,735,829 votes (14.11%), and Elisa Carrió fifth. The candidate of the U.C.R., Leopoldo Moreau, was relegated to one of the last places, with 2.34% of the votes.

Since none of the candidates obtained the necessary majority to prevail in the first round, the second round was reached. The 1994 reform of the Argentine Constitution prescribes, in articles 94 and 96, that the ballot must be carried out if the winner obtains less than 45% of the votes and there is a difference of less than ten percentage points with the second candidate.

A new second-round election between the two most voted candidates (Menem and Néstor Kirchner) was then prepared for May 18, 2003. Menem decided to resign his candidacy considering that his rival's advantage in votes was irreversible; In this way, he ended up being a victim of the mechanism devised by his own team. When the Menem-Romero formula was withdrawn from the ballot, the Kirchner-Scioli formula was proclaimed.

National Senator for La Rioja

On October 23, 2005, he obtained the minority bench in the election for national senator for his province. Thus, Menem returned to public office six years after leaving the presidency.

In May 2007, Menem presented himself as an opponent of President Néstor Kirchner, whom he publicly denounced on several occasions. In his opinion, Kirchner does not apply an impartial policy regarding the trial of military and civilians accused of having committed acts of human rights violations in the 1970s and 1980s, since it only intends to judge the leaders of the last military dictatorship, but not the militants of guerrilla organizations.

He ran as a candidate for governor of La Rioja on August 19, 2007, but was defeated. Before this defeat, Menem was publicly presenting himself as a candidate for the presidency for the October 2007 elections. to apply. In 2008, the company Siemens AG stated that between 1998 and 2004 it had paid bribes to different officials, including Menem, in order to obtain a multimillion-dollar contract with the State to manufacture national identity documents, which was denied by Menem.

On July 17, 2008, Menem played a prominent role in the session on Resolution 125, regarding the imposition of mobile withholdings on the export of agricultural products, in which the conflict between the National Government and the the agricultural-livestock sector. During the debate, which lasted eighteen hours, the former president was largely absent due to an emergency hospitalization for severe pneumonia. This gave rise to numerous speculations, since with his absence 71 of the 72 senators would vote, allowing the ruling party to win by 36 votes against 35 for the opposition. Finally, Menem was present at the venue, delivered a strong speech against mobile retentions, publicly announced his project entered through the ticket table and anticipated that he would vote against the pro-government project. This was described as an act of civic courage by the former Secretary General of the Presidency, Alberto Kohan. Finally, the session ended tied with 36 votes, and the then Vice President, Julio César Cleto Cobos, had to break the tie.

Voted against the bill regarding the voluntary termination of pregnancy of August 8, 2018.

In December 2019, he joined the Frente de Todos coalition.

Public Image

Menem ventured into motorsports. He regularly competed in rally in the 1980s with a Peugeot 504 first and then with a Renault 18, which he later gave to his friend Juan María Traverso.

After taking office as president and during the exercise of his mandate, Menem devoted special attention to the media, thereby increasing his public role and his media profile. According to some journalistic outlets, in opportunity to give a press conference, Menem would have stated that among his readings was a work written by Socrates. Menem's mistake would have consisted in the fact that it is unknown that something written by said philosopher exists.

On another occasion, at the beginning of the 1996 school year in Tartagal (Salta), he informed the children of a rural school that a stratospheric flight system would be tendered “from a platform that may be installed in the province of Córdoba. Those spaceships are going to leave the atmosphere, they are going to go up to the stratosphere and from there choose the place where they want to go, in such a way that in an hour and a half we can, from Argentina, be in Japan, Korea or anywhere. ». The president mentioned in his speech that he had received businessmen from the American aviation company Lockheed-Martin. The project actually consisted of restructuring the country's military aviation system and building vehicles to travel to the outer space; both NASA and said company wanted to establish a base in South America, although Argentina had two competitors: Boeing and Northrop Grumman. With this contract, the fleet of military aircraft was privatized under the subsidiary Lockheed Aircraft Argentina. Menem received criticism for that speech; the governor of Salta, Juan Carlos Romero, affirmed that in his province there were "at least 50,000 illiterates". In the following decades, the national media ridiculed Menem's statements, and with the rise of social networks have posted numerous memes evoking the incident.

Another project promoted by Menem and harshly criticized by the press was to build an "aeroisla", an artificial island in the Río de la Plata to which the Jorge Newbery Airport would be transferred. The project, supported by Álvaro Alsogaray, never prospered.

He pardoned those responsible for state terrorism in Argentina in the 1970s and 1980s, and members of guerrilla groups such as the ERP and Montoneros; he decorated Augusto Pinochet and tried to implement the death penalty.When his Interior Minister, Gustavo Béliz, resigned in 1993, he accused him of choosing instead of "honest officials"; to "pimps and mediocre".

In the last years of his life, he headed the Loyalty and Dignity party, together with Mercedes Landa.

Legal cases

Weapons smuggling to Croatia and Ecuador

On June 7, 2001, he was arrested for the scandal over arms sales to Ecuador, Croatia, and Bosnia that occurred during his government and was under house arrest until November 2001, when the Supreme Court acquitted him. He was accused of having ordered the diversion of arms shipments that, according to the decrees signed by him, were to go to Panama and Venezuela, but ended up in Ecuador and Croatia.). In 2013 the Federal Chamber of Criminal Cassation revoked the acquittal and convicted him as a co-author of the arms smuggling to Croatia and Ecuador; shortly after TOPE 3 established the penalty at 7 years in prison.

In 2017, the Supreme Court unanimously granted the extraordinary appeals of the defendants and ordered a new ruling to be issued. The Federal Chamber of Criminal Cassation acquitted him on October 4, 2018, because it had not been complied with the "principle of reasonable time" to arrive at a firm conviction.

Explosion at the arms factory in Río Tercero

Regarding the cause of the bombing of the Río Tercero munitions factory, which occurred during his second presidency, in 2008 the Federal Chamber of Córdoba annulled its investigation into the causes of that event.

On November 3, 2020, the municipality of Río Tercero declared him persona non grata.

Embezzlement and perpetual disqualification from holding public office

On December 1, 2015, the Federal Oral Court 4 sentenced Menem to 4 years and six months in prison for the crime of embezzlement and perpetual disqualification from holding public office.

His finance minister Domingo Cavallo and former Justice minister Raúl Granillo Ocampo were also found guilty and sentenced to prison.

Second trial for the AMIA attack

On February 28, 2019, the Federal Criminal Oral Court 2 acquitted him regarding the accusation of having covered up the attack on the AMIA that occurred on July 18, 1994.

Sale of the Rural property

In March 2019, Menem was convicted in a lawsuit for the sale of the Palermo Fairgrounds to Sociedad Rural. The judges determined that this sale caused damage to the Argentine state for approximately one hundred million dollars.

Death

Velorio de Menem, in the Blue Hall of the National Congress.

Carlos Menem died on February 14, 2021 at the age of 90, after spending two months in a sanatorium, where he had been admitted for a urinary infection. In mid-2020, the former president had spent 15 days at the Institute for Diagnosis and Treatment for bilateral pneumonia. The Government of Argentina decreed three days of national mourning for the death, although the Cordoba city of Río Tercero did not adhere to the measure in repudiation for its link to the 1995 explosions. The remains of the national senator for La Rioja were veiled in the last hours of February 14 in the Blue Room of the National Congress attended, in addition to authorities and politicians from different parties, numerous citizens. Despite the fact that at his death he professed the Catholic religion, his remains were buried in a cemetery Islamic in San Justo, La Matanza, next to the remains of his son.

After his death, Zulemita announced that in December 2020 a gold and onyx ring had been stolen, a replica of the jewel that the man from La Rioja had received from his father. Ten days later and after an offer of reward, the family of a nurse who had assisted the former head of state handed over the ring at a Buenos Aires City Police station. After recovering the jewel, the Menem's eldest daughter was very emotional before the media, she said that she would use the ring and hoped that Justice would sanction the nurse accused of the theft with a probation.

Works

• Menem, Carlos Saul (1989). The Productive Revolution. Buenos Aires: Peña Lillo. ISBN 9789505170357.
• Menem, Carlos Saul (1999). Universes of my time. A personal witness. Buenos Aires: South American. ISBN 9500716844.
• Menem, Carlos Saul (2018). My life and my political history. Buenos Aires: South American. ISBN 9789877632170.