Maria Estela Martinez de Peron
María Estela Martínez Letters from Perón (La Rioja, February 4, 1931), better known by her nickname Isabel Perón or Isabelita, is an Argentine ex-politician and dancer who was elected Vice President of the Nation in 1973 in the formula that she integrated with Juan Domingo Perón and that after his death on July 1, 1974, she assumed as president. Her period in office (1974-1976) occupied the largest and last part of the historical cycle called "third Peronism" (1973-1976). She was overthrown and imprisoned for five years by the civic-military dictatorship that took power on March 24, 1976.
Lived in 1961 in Madrid, Spain, due to the forced exile of her husband Juan Domingo Perón, she was appointed as his personal delegate in Argentina on two occasions. With the end of said ban in 1973, she settled with Perón in Argentina and after the resignation of President Héctor J. Cámpora she was chosen to integrate the presidential formula of the Justicialista Liberation Front (Frejuli) in the presidential elections of September 1973, in which the Perón-Perón binomial prevailed with 61.85% of the votes, taking office on October 12, 1973.
She was the first woman president of her country and the first woman in the world to occupy the head of state and government of a republican country with a presidential system.
The presidency of Martínez de Perón took place in a very complicated political and economic context, and his government is generally portrayed in a negative light, characterized by a persistent deterioration of political and civil liberties, and by a significant shift in the Peronism towards the orthodoxy of this, being her, a very important political picture for orthodox Peronism. Martínez de Perón was strongly influenced by José López Rega, his Minister of Social Welfare, who was considered a virtual "prime minister". Martínez de Perón signed the first of the so-called annihilation decrees that were used by the military, police and parapolice to proceed to the torture, kidnapping and execution without trial of people considered "subversives". and produced a strong reaction from the unions and a serious political crisis that led to the resignation of López Rega. In order to preserve the constitutional institutions, Martínez de Perón announced the advancement of the presidential elections to October 1976 but on 24 In March of that same year, a coup d'état put an end to the constitutional regime and established a civic-military dictatorship calling itself the "Reorganization Process". National Organization". After his overthrow, Martínez de Perón was placed under house arrest, being released only five years later, in 1981. After that he settled in Spain, where he resides to this day. Since his arrival in the government She was nominal president of the PJ until February 1985, when she was succeeded, first by Vicente Saadi (as interim president of the Justicialista National Congress), and later by Antonio Cafiero, head of the "Peronist renewal" who won the elections for the PJ. year 1987.
At the beginning of 2007, as a result of the reopening of legal cases for political assassinations carried out during his government, his extradition to Argentina was requested. The Spanish National Court ruled that the crimes committed during his term could not be considered crimes against humanity and that for that reason they had prescribed. From his overthrow onwards and with the exception of a series of minor appearances in the 1980s and 1990s, Martínez de Perón has generally remained out of the public sphere, refusing to grant interviews and avoiding issue political opinions. Since the death of Roberto Marcelo Levingston in 2015, Martínez de Perón is the former head of the Argentine State who has survived the term of his government the longest. Following the death of Carlos Menem in 2021, she is the only living former Argentine head of state of the XX century.
The legacy of Martínez de Perón is historically controversial, even within the ranks of Justicialismo. Her critics tend to describe her as an "inoperative", "weak" or "disoriented" president who remained influenced by various figures of power, while others consider her consciously responsible for the political repression that occurred during her presidency. Some figures inside and outside Peronism consider her government as a triggering factor both for the coup d'état and for the first electoral defeat of the justicialismo after the end of the dictatorship and return to democracy in 1983. There is a broad historical consensus that Martínez de Perón lacked the necessary political experience to hold the position, and that this largely motivated the undue influence of other people in his political actions as well as his anticipated fall from power.
Early Years
María Estela Martínez Cartas was born on February 4, 1931 in the capital city of the province of La Rioja, in northern Argentina, into a middle-class family. Her parents were Carmelo Martínez (1893-1938), a bank employee from the City of Buenos Aires who had been assigned to the La Rioja district, and María Josefa Cartas (1897-1966), her cousin was the renowned Argentine artist Juanita Martinez.
After the death of her father in 1938, Martínez, then seven years old, was sent to Buenos Aires to live with José Cresto and his wife, Isabel Zoila Gómez de Cresto, who ran a spiritist school and were her adoptive parents. Martínez distanced himself from his biological family after their separation and has remained with the Cresto couple ever since. Martínez completed his studies after fifth grade in Buenos Aires; his house. During her adolescence she studied Spanish dance, ballet, singing, English, French and piano also in Buenos Aires.
Martínez de Perón broke relations with his biological family some time before his marriage to Perón. At the time of her trip to Argentina in 1965 and 1966 as her husband's delegate, her mother (who fell ill and died a few months later) tried to visit her but Martínez de Perón refused to receive her, which was harshly portrayed by the anti-Peronist press. Her brother Carlos Ernesto Martínez also tried to visit her, without success, and was arrested in March 1966 on alleged assault charges, which led her family to denounce that the arrest was politically motivated.
Artistic career
She began her career as a dancer, adopting the stage name "Isabel" or "Isabelita", which she had chosen as her confirmation name in reference to Saint Elizabeth of Portugal.
In her early twenties she joined the dance group of the Teatro Nacional Cervantes, then joined a dance company within which she began a tour of Latin America, traveling to Uruguay, Colombia and Venezuela.
In 1952 she was summoned by the Spanish businessman Emilio Redondo to incorporate her into his dance group, touring different Argentine provinces for two years, such as Córdoba, Entre Ríos and Santa Fe.
Then, in 1953, he joined the dance company of Teatro Avenida, sharing stages with Haydée Padilla, touring in Uruguay, the neighboring country.
Later, in 1955, she was summoned by the Spanish Faustino García to join his corps de ballet, with whom she toured Chile, Peru, Colombia and Panama, where she would later meet Juan Domingo Perón.
Meeting and marriage with Perón
Between December 1955 and January 1956, Martínez traveled to Panama as part of the Joe Herald's Ballet company's tour of Latin America. The country is unknown, with versions that affirm that he was already there in December 1955 and others that cite that his trip was on January 28, 1956. At that time, former President Juan Domingo Perón was in exile after the coup d'état in September 1955 that he had overthrown his government and established a military dictatorship calling itself the "Revolución Libertadora", which banned Peronism and Perón himself from Argentine political life. According to the first versions, on December 22, 1955, Perón was invited to witness a show in which Martínez appeared, so that was supposedly his first meeting there. There are also numerous versions about how and when Martínez formally met Perón.
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A first version established that Carlos Pascali, former Argentine ambassador in Panama, took Martínez to the apartment that the exiled former president occupied in the Panamanian capital and that they met formally there. A second version established that, after learning of his presence in a show that he presented, Martínez herself approached Perón on her own and asked him for a job, having lunch with him and later receiving a room within the same apartment. Finally, a third version affirmed that Perón attended the show and Satisfied with this, he presented small medals to the dancers in congratulations, including one to Martínez, who would have presented herself to him after this. Most accounts agree that Martínez asked her to work as his secretary or personal assistant., stating that he could do it without charging. By the end of January 1956, Perón and Martínez had already begun an intimate relationship and were living together. Erse, Perón was in his sixties, while Martínez turned twenty-five shortly after meeting him.
After a brief stay in Panama, Martínez accompanied Perón when they were moving to Caracas, Venezuela, on August 8, 1956, where they lived a modest life due to the economic conditions of exile. than a year ago, when a military uprising overthrew the authoritarian Marcos Pérez Jiménez government in January 1958. Fearing an attempt on their lives, Perón and Martínez took refuge in the embassy of the Dominican Republic, where they decided to travel separately. under the auspices of the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. Perón traveled on January 27, 1958, while Martínez did so days later. They lived in the Dominican Republic for almost two exact years, and on January 26, 1960 they moved to Spain as part of a maneuver to guarantee their departure. by the Argentine government of Arturo Frondizi, the Trujillo regime and the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco.
There is a wide divergence of sources and versions about when the marriage between Perón and Martínez took place, as well as the ulterior motives of the marriage. Some sources agree that Perón actually had no intention of marrying his secretary, keeping her as a concubine, but that the harshly conservative regime in Franco's Spain pressured him to "normalize" their marital situation, not seeing favorably that the former president exiled —being twice a widower— maintained a cohabitation relationship with a woman much younger than him. The official version establishes that the marriage took place through the Catholic Church on November 15, 1961, at the residence of the personal doctor de Perón, Francisco Flores Tascón. Another version, however, affirms that the marriage took place many months before, on January 2 or 5 of the same year and that a waiting period was maintained to finally make it public. It was the third and last marriage of Perón, who had been widowed twice before, with his first wife Aurelia Tizón (1902-1938) and with his second wife and first lady during his presidency, Eva Duarte (19 19-1952); who was also a historical figure within Peronism, Martínez de Perón accompanied her husband during the rest of her exile at his residence in Puerta de Hierro. Perón affectionately referred to her wife as "Chabela" or "Chabelita", while she publicly used the name "Isabel Perón" ever since.
Subsequently, Martínez de Perón affirmed that during her stay in Madrid she became pregnant by her husband on two occasions, both times suffering spontaneous abortions. The latter, however, contradicts the historical versions that affirm that Perón was sterile after from an accident in his youth, and had no children as a result with either of his two previous wives.
Political preparation
Martínez de Perón at the time of meeting General Perón had little political knowledge, his knowledge was but entrenched in artistic and religious matters. During the almost twenty years of relationship with the general, he made her his student so that she would be useful in the Peronist movement, so it was that he trained her in the use of firearms, the telegraph and fencing, but mainly her weapons. Teachings were about history, philosophy, Argentine law and diplomacy, he also made her accompany him in the meetings that he presided over in exile with different political figures of the time.
For this reason, in the presidential campaign, Martínez Cartas de Perón argues that she does not have great titles, but she does have the pride of being Perón's student.
Beginnings in politics
First trip to Argentina and conflict with “Peronism without Perón”
Following the overthrow of Perón and the banning of Peronism from Argentine political life, the country experienced a period of persistent political instability, with elected governments and a constitutional reform questioning their legitimacy (withdrawal of the 1957 Constituent Convention of the UCRI and other parties questioning its legitimacy, proscription of Peronism and communism; coup against Frondizi; arbitrary arrest of President Frondizi, annulment of the 1962 elections due to military pressure, suspension of Congress, intervention of the provinces in 1962). After the rupture of the Perón-Frondizi Pact —which had guaranteed the election as president of Arturo Frondizi (intransigent radical) with the support of Peronism— the crisis of the restricted democracy was attenuated after the election of Arturo Umberto Illia (radical of the people) with a high number of blank votes, corresponding to proscribed Peronism and to a lesser extent to frondicismo and communism. nismo. At the same time on the domestic front, Perón's leadership was confronted by a phenomenon known as "neoperonism" or "Peronism without Perón", headed to a large extent by the metalworker union leader Augusto Timoteo Vandor, who promoted electoral participation under different acronyms and that he maintained the justicialist doctrines, which gained strength after his triumph in the legislative elections of 1965. Faced with this situation and with the impossibility of traveling to the country after a failed attempt to do so in 1964, Perón appointed his wife as his delegate personnel in Argentina.
Martínez de Perón landed at the Ezeiza Airport on October 10, 1965, after having taken a flight from Spain with a stopover in Paraguay and remained in the country for eight months. The day after his arrival was a holiday for the press, so the population was not aware of its arrival until October 13. At first, Martínez de Perón stayed for a few days in a hotel in Recoleta, Capital Federal, where he was the victim of harassment by anti-Peronist groups in complicity with the Argentine Federal Police. Faced with this situation, he moved to Luz y Fuerza, Callao al 1700, in the same city, where the attacks continued and ended up becoming sporadic riots. After a series of changes of location, Martínez de Perón chose to accept an offer to reside temporarily in the private homes of Peronist leaders. Perón blamed his wife's trip on alleged family problems before the Spanish press, ruling out that it was to carry out some type of political activity.
As Perón's personal delegate and with the aim of ousting vandorismo, Martínez de Perón participated in more than six hundred meetings throughout the country in almost all the provinces, holding meetings with leaders of the Peronist Resistance and promoting the organization of the Justicialista Party under the leadership of Perón. On April 17, 1966, elections were held to renew the governorship of the province of Mendoza, which had a three-year term different from the four used by the other Argentine districts. The government of Arturo Illia allowed the different Peronist factions to present themselves, and they were divided between the candidacy of Ernesto Corvalán Nanclares (of the Justicialist Party founded by Perón from exile the previous year) and Alberto Serú García (of the neo-Peronist Movimiento Popular Mendocino). Despite the ban, the fear of the country's political and military elite of a Peronist victory in Mendoza motivated the government to authorize the presence of Martínez de Perón in Argentina and allow him to campaign for top-down justicialismo, with the aim of encourage a division of the Peronist vote. In a letter addressed to Perón, Martínez de Perón referred critically to Vandor: "Vandor etc. they have shown their lint and there is no need to give them truce because they are rubbish". in an overwhelming way, which was located in fourth place. In this regard, Martínez de Perón opined in another letter: «I would have wanted to give you the government of Mendoza but I think it is better that way; The important thing in reality was not the collusion but to defenestrate forever the cancer of Peronism ".
During his stay in Argentina, Martínez de Perón met José López Rega, at the home of Lieutenant Colonel Bernardo Alberte (where he was staying temporarily due to his tour). López Rega was a policeman from the province of Buenos Aires. Aires, who ran a small printing company at the time, called Suministros Gráficos, which he had offered to put at the service of the Peronist movement. He was also a recent member of the Masonic lodge ANAEL and was nicknamed "El Brujo" for his love of esotericism. Listening to him speak during the subsequent meeting, Martínez de Perón requested a private interview with López Rega, during which she asked him to accompany her to Spain to work with her and Perón in Madrid, acting as the couple's private secretary, a proposal that López Rega accepted.. López Rega quickly gained the confidence of Perón's wife during the interview. According to López Rega himself, Martínez de Perón, attracted by López Rega's inclination to that terism and the occult, which she shared, would have asked him to help her "protect herself from the evils of politics that are coming her way." On June 28, 1966, while Martínez de Perón was still in the country, the Arturo Illia's government was overthrown by a military coup led by General Juan Carlos Onganía, who had the initial approval of Perón himself, before the anti-Peronist nature of the new dictatorial regime became evident, which would remain in power until the end of the proscription. On July 9, 1966, Martínez de Perón returned to Spain accompanied by López Rega, the latter settling in Puerta de Hierro together with the Perón couple.
Second trip to Argentina
The figure of Martínez de Perón began to become known among the Argentine public due to the documentary film Perón: Political and Doctrinal Update for the Seizure of Power, which contained a series of interviews in which Perón evaluated the situation of the justicialist movement and the steps to be taken to regain power, counting on the appearance of Martínez de Perón in some of the recordings. The prohibition of the documentary by the military government led to it having to be broadcast clandestinely. An interview that Martínez de Perón gave to the journalist and correspondent Armando Manuel Puente, from Panorama Magazine was also highlighted. >, that same year, where he revealed details about his life with Perón and the constant visits by political leaders and prominent figures. Months later, Martínez de Perón was sent back to Argentina to support the appointment of Héctor José Cámpora as Perón's personal delegate for the discussion of the Great National Agreement proposed by the de facto president Alejandro Agustín Lanusse in the context of the deep crisis suffered by the ruling dictatorship. Cámpora's appointment it occurred to the detriment of Jorge Daniel Paladino, who had started discussions with the government to achieve the legalization of Peronism and the institutional and democratic normalization of the country.
Martínez de Perón arrived in Argentina for the second time on December 7, 1971. On this occasion, she was received by a massive concentration at the airport, with numerous journalists trying to interview her and protesters singing Peronist chants. to the different Peronist unions, as well as other adherents, was estimated at 10,000 by its organizers and at least 7,000 by the press. The concentration revealed the deep divisions that by then affected Peronism between its orthodox sector and the so-called "Revolutionary Tendency", inclined towards the political left, which was reflected in the conflicting chants, which ran the risk of causing violent confrontations. Perón himself had expressed his fear that the arrival of his wife would cause riots, and specifically organized the trip for Martínez de Perón to arrive in Argentina on a Thursday, a working day. e, in order to prevent a massive turnout. The decision to send Martínez de Perón corresponded to the fact that her intimate relationship with the justicialist leader prevented her from being seen as a figure related to either of the two Peronist factions, considering the The only one that could not "distort" the doctrine of the movement. The Great National Agreement was categorically rejected by Peronism and liberal sectors, who considered that this was nothing more than an attempt by the armed forces to stay in power and condition the incoming democratic government.
Return of Peronism to Argentine political life
Without the agreement proposed by the regime, free elections were called with the participation of Peronism. However, a series of restrictions regarding the residence of the candidates prevented Perón himself from presenting himself to them., since the candidates had to establish their domicile in Argentina before August 25, 1972. The Justicialista Party formed a coalition with other parties that had previously been anti-Peronists: the Integration and Development Movement (MID), led by former president Arturo Frondizi, the Popular Conservative Party (PCP) and sectors of the Christian Democratic Party (PDC); which became known as the Justicialista Liberation Front (FREJULI). Given the impossibility of Perón's candidacy, the candidate was Héctor José Cámpora, with the popular conservative Vicente Solano Lima as his running mate and vice-presidential candidate. The FREJULI formula prevailed in the elections of March 11 with 49, 56% of the votes over 21.29% for Ricardo Balbín, candidate of the Radical Civic Union (UCR), and 14.90% for the conservative Francisco Manrique. In the same way, the Justicialismo obtained an absolute majority in both legislative chambers with 144 of 243 deputies (124 of them belonging to the PJ and the rest to their electoral allies) and 44 of 69 senators, and obtained the government of almost all the provinces., with the exception of Neuquén (governed by the neo-Peronist Neuquino Popular Movement) and Santa Fe (governed by the MID in alliance with the PJ). The elected positions were sworn in on May 25, 1973. At the request of Perón and Martínez de Perón, López Rega was appointed Minister of Social Welfare in the Government of Cámpora, a position in which he would remain until the presidency of Martínez de Perón herself. Peron. A few days before the swearing in of the elected government, between May 8 and 18, Martínez de Perón, in the company of López Rega, led a diplomatic mission to the People's Republic of China and North Korea, where he met with supreme leader Kim Il-sung. Finally, both she and Perón remained in Madrid until preparations were made for the definitive return of the Justicialist leader to Argentina, in June of that same year.
September 1973 presidential election
Presidency of Cámpora
The arrival of Héctor J. Cámpora to the presidency occurred in the context of the stratagem used by the outgoing military government to prevent Perón's candidacy for the presidency, hence his campaign slogan "Cámpora to the government, Perón to power", made it clear that it was Perón who held real political power after the electoral victory. between factions of the front of supporters of the right and left, who were disputing power within Peronism itself, motivating an expression of disgust by Perón with respect to the management that Cámpora was carrying out and that had already manifested itself during his stay in Madrid shortly before the return trip. Shortly after this event and at the request of Perón, Cámpora and Solano Lima resigned as president and vice president on July 13, with the aim of calling new elections without proscriptions, in which Perón could present his candidacy. The influence that by then José López Rega exercised over the justicialismo manifested that the second in line of succession, Alejandro Díaz Bialet, provisional president of the Senate, was removed from the country to allow Raúl Alberto Lastiri, president of the Chamber of Deputies and third in line of succession, assume the presidency as interim head of state until the call for elections. Lastiri responded to the most right-wing sector of Justicialismo and was a member of the anti-communist Propaganda Due lodge, of which López Rega (at the time his father-in-law) was also a member.
By 1973, Perón's health, at almost eighty years of age, had begun to worsen and it was known by most of the political circle that he would not finish the four-year term for which he would be elected. When Cámpora took office, the bidding and confrontations of the sectors that with divergent ideological approaches coexisted within the Justicialismo intensified. Juan Manuel Abal Medina, a key figure in Justicialismo at that time, opined in a report in 1999:
The first symptoms of complication occurred in February 1973: Perón was being operated by prostate at the Puigvert clinic in Barcelona, and had a heart attack on the intervention (...). López Rega knew about it and started organizing his advance. He kept the secret and began his deteriorating task to Cámpora. The first ally that López Rega seeks was not the right, it was the Peronist left. Nobody listened to him. He looked for me, because I was more on the left, and he began to speak ill of Cámpora (...) “They want to leave us out,” he said. Who, I was wondering. Lopez was no one, served the coffee. I didn't take it seriously. But Lopez was talking about Isabel. He said to me, "The real loyal are us, you, the lady who loves the Montoneros so much." And they had some contacts with the Montoneros, some meetings. Obviously they didn't come to anything.
Perón-Perón Formula
Given this scenario and with the growing political violence between the different sectors of Peronism, the figure of the Vice President of the Nation gained key importance. After failing in an attempt to find a unity formula with the radical leader Ricardo Balbín, discussions and speculation began about who would be Perón's running mate. On July 26, on the occasion of the twenty-first anniversary of the death of Eva Perón, the Justicialist leader's candidacy for the presidency was officially proclaimed (despite being considered a fait accompli since the previous March elections were called).), without specifying at that time who would be the vice-presidential candidate.
The idea that Martínez de Perón was Perón's running mate, which began to be speculated about that month, responded to the fact that she was the only figure apart from Perón himself who had not defined himself within the internal confrontation of Justicialismo. On July 31, Cámpora confirmed that the idea of a "Perón-Perón" formula was being considered. Despite this, Martínez de Perón was almost completely lacking in political experience despite her demonstrated ability to represent her husband in diplomatic matters., and he had no professional training prior to his meeting and relationship with Perón. The same Justicialist leader was initially opposed to the idea that his wife was a candidate, worried about the situation in which she would find herself if he died in office.
However, for his part, López Rega was one of the main promoters of Martínez de Perón's candidacy and ended up dispelling Perón's doubts. Finally, the proclamation of the Perón-Perón formula took place on August 5 of 1973 at the Teatro Colón. Except for the frustrated candidacy of Eva Perón in 1951, it was the fourth time that a woman presented herself as a candidate for vice president of Argentina, preceded by the communist Alcira de la Peña (1951 and 1954), the independent civic Ana Zaefferer de Goyeneche (1958) and the Trotskyist Nora Ciapponi (March 1973), as well as the first with a real chance of being elected. Ciapponi's replacement by José Francisco Páez as Juan Carlos Coral's (PST) running mate, led to her also being the only female candidate in that election.
The elections took place normally on Sunday, September 23, resulting in an overwhelming victory for the Perón-Perón formula, which prevailed in all provinces and obtained 61.85% of the positive votes cast against 24, 42% obtained by the radical pair made up of Ricardo Balbín and Fernando de la Rúa, 12.19% from the conservative formula of Francisco Manrique and Rafael Martínez Raymonda, and 1.54% from the PST candidacy, made up of Juan Carlos Coral and Jose Francisco Paez. With a difference of 37.43% over the second most voted option, the result obtained by Perón and Martínez de Perón in September 1973 constituted the greatest percentage difference between the two most voted candidates in Argentine electoral history. In terms of votes obtained, it was the second highest percentage of votes since Perón's own re-election in 1951, and the last time that a single formula triumphed in all electoral districts in Argentina. After the electoral victory, Martínez de Perón would have declared before the media: "I am a humble woman of the people whose only merit is having been a disciple of Perón and my love for Perón and the Argentine people."
Vice Presidency (1973-1974)
Perón and Martínez de Perón were sworn in as president and vice president of the Argentine Nation respectively on October 12, 1973. With her arrival at the vice presidency, Martínez de Perón became the first woman to access said position in the Argentine history. She was also first lady of the Argentine Nation simultaneously due to her marriage to Perón; She is the only one of the three women who have held the Argentine vice presidency to have this particularity.
Martínez de Perón's vice presidency was short, due to her husband's health problems and was characterized by a virtual vacancy of the position, according to what would be recounted by numerous officials. Gustavo Caraballo, then Secretary General of the Presidency, later affirmed that Martínez de Perón did not perform any legislative tasks and almost did not attend the Senate (which constitutionally, as vice president, she had to preside over) during the nine months that she held office, most of the powers falling to the Democrat Cristiano José Antonio Allende, provisional president of the body. According to Caraballo, Martínez de Perón only presided over the upper chamber on a few occasions, which were preceded by a complex preparation with written outlines and preventing the session from becoming "complicated". The provisional president, Allende, would later declare that Martínez de Perón did not know or remember the name of practically none of them. the members of the pro-government bloc. The sessions in which Martínez de Perón was present were deliberately shortened, granting the floor only to the presidents of the blocs and one or two senators.
From November 1973, just a month after his return to power, Perón's health began to decline, so Martínez de Perón took over the executive branch on two occasions. Perón continued in the presidency until his death on July 1, 1974, and Martínez de Perón assumed the presidency that same day. There is a version, from the journalist Heriberto Kahn, that the same morning of his death, Perón consulted the legal and technical secretary of the presidency, Gustavo Caraballo, about the possibility of seeking a legal mechanism so that the head of state could be handed over to Ricardo Balbín as soon as he died, to which Martínez de Perón responded in silence and López Rega protested that it was an unconstitutional action. Perón doubted his wife's ability to hold office in the prevailing political context, and would have advised his wife to he would never make an important decision "without consulting Balbín".
According to statements by Martínez de Perón herself in a later interview, she intended to present her resignation from the presidency the same day that Perón died but was convinced to remain in office for most of her term. political environment, which promised him support.
Diplomatic trips
In her role as vice president, she made an international tour of different countries around the world with the intention of covering new markets, making agreements and establishing new relationships. Among her destinations were Italy, Spain, North Korea, China, Taiwan and Switzerland.
Presidency (1974-1976)
Death of Perón and inauguration
At around 2:00 p.m. on July 1, 1974, Martínez de Perón publicly announced the death of Juan Domingo Perón on a national channel (whose announcement was last titled "Madam Vice President of the Nation in exercise of executive power ») with the phrase: «with great pain I must convey to the people the death of a true [breaks] apostle of peace and non-violence; I constitutionally assume the first magistracy of the country". During his brief speech, Martínez de Perón requested the support of the population and the main political figures of the country to exercise the government, as well as asked his opponents and adversaries to cooperate to comply with the objectives outlined by Peronism. She ended her speech with the phrase: "May God enlighten me and fortify me to fulfill what God and Perón gave me as a mission."
The arrival of Martínez de Perón to the presidency sparked a small debate regarding the title that should be used to refer to her: if she should be considered "president" or "president". Perón was the first woman to hold the head of state in America, and the first head of state of a republican country whose head of state used the title "president." On July 10, 1974, nine days after coming to power and responding to some media outlets that referred to her as "president", the Secretary for Press and Diffusion issued a statement: "Through the Secretary for Press and Diffusion of the Presidency of the Nation, information was released intended, as indicated, to avoid erroneous denominations, with respect to the position of Mrs. María Estela Martínez de Perón, who, having assumed the first magistracy in compliance with a constitutional mandate, corresponds be recognized as the "excellent lady president of the Argentine Nation". It is expressed that such name is established by article 74 of the National Constitution, stating that the Executive Power will be exercised by a citizen with the title of "president of the Argentine Nation"". The conflict regarding the name returned to occurred in 2007, decades later, when Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was elected president and chose to use the feminine form of the title. The Royal Spanish Academy considers that the feminine "president" is the most appropriate to refer to the position when it is held a woman. However, during the government of Martínez de Perón, the press and institutions habitually referred to her as "the president" or "lady president", the media that called her by the form being very minority. feminine of the title.
Political aspects
Initial context
The presidency of Martínez de Perón developed within the framework of the Cold War worldwide, increased with the US defeat in the Vietnam War, the actions of guerrillas and strong terrorist organizations in numerous countries (ETA, IRA and the Red Brigades) and the rise of communist parties in Europe. At the regional level, Argentina was at the time of the inauguration of Martínez de Perón the only state in the Southern Cone that maintained a democratic constitutional government. During the previous year, successive coups d'état overthrew the only neighboring democracies (Chile and Uruguay) and imposed military dictatorships under the respective leaderships of Augusto Pinochet and Juan María Bordaberry. Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia had already had similar regimes for several years, supported by the United States for its strong anti-communist sign, through the Condor Plan. Internally, Argentina was also facing increasing political violence, with the actions of several armed groups of different ideological persuasions. The government exhibited marked administrative ineffectiveness in different areas, and violent state action against the left led to a persistent weakening of the country's political and civil liberties. Under the presidency of Martínez de Perón, the report "Freedom in the World » of the international organization of human rights Freedom House, published in January and February of 1975 and 1976, on both occasions lowered the percentage of Argentina to "partially free" with respect to the category of "free" received in January 1974, when Perón was still in power. This was, along with the December 2001 crisis, the only two occasions since the index's first publication in 1973 in which an Argentine constitutional government received a score below "free".
At first, leaving aside the policy of rapprochement between Perón and the opposition leader, the radical Ricardo Balbín, President Martínez de Perón relied mainly on her Minister of Social Welfare, Perón's former personal secretary, José López Rega, known as "Daniel" by his relatives and "el Brujo" by his political opponents. López Rega strengthened the presence of right-wing sectors in the government over other groups, and organized a vigilante force known as the Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance or Triple A, which harassed leading figures of the left, which ended in kidnappings, torture and assassinations. The actual extent of López Rega's influence within the Martínez de Perón government is the subject of historical debate. There are positions that describe him as a kind of "de facto prime minister" or "shadow president", who made the vast majority of political decisions during a little more than half of the mandate of Martinez de Peron; an influence that had already begun to take hold during the last years of Perón's life and his third term. Some footage showing Martínez de Perón giving public speeches while López Rega was behind her moving her lips, led to claims that he had almost direct control over both the political and physical actions of the president.
Although Martínez de Perón lacked the charisma of Eva Perón and Perón himself, her husband's death had left a general sense of powerlessness; At first, her image as a "grieving widow" earned her wide political and public support, which began to fade as the months went by, the economic decline and the controversies that affected her figure. López Rega's influence on the actions government officials and his controversial relationship with Martínez de Perón within the framework of their mutual passion for esotericism gave rise to numerous historical anecdotes, which involve having attempted to perform alleged mystical rituals with the embalmed corpse of Eva Perón before returning to Argentina to try to « transmit» to Martínez de Perón the spirit of the former wife of the justicialist leader; or his affirmation of having "resurrected" Perón through magic during his presidency. According to Julio Broner, president of the General Business Confederation, Ricardo Balbín would have tried to convince Martínez de Perón to remove López Rega from office in order to "preserve the public image" of the presidency, which led the minister to close the president's inner circle around him, with the supposed objective of "Peronizing" the cabinet. Between August and October 1974, four key ministries (Interior, Economy, Education, and Defense) were fired or forced to resign and replaced by leaders from the orthodox Peronism sector, highlighting officials from Perón's first presidency who had distanced themselves from his leadership after his ouster. Martínez de Perón changed each of his ministers at least four times during less than two years in office, and only three of them (López Rega himself and Foreign Minister Alberto Juan Vignes, both appointed before he became president, as well as the head of the briefly autonomous public health ministry, Pedro Rolan Yáñez) lasted a full year in office.
Between 1973 and 1976, the Triple A was responsible for the disappearance and death of between seven hundred and one thousand one hundred people. The figure of López Rega and the right-wing political turn of the Martínez de Perón government led to the left Peronist party went from an internal dispute to an open opposition to the government, which even led to armed violence. The Peronist guerrilla organization Montoneros, which intended to dispute the authority of the president, announced on September 6, 1974 that it would go underground, which affected the governability of the flimsy democracy. A year later, on September 8, 1975, during the rapprochement of Martínez de Perón with the military ranks, the organization would be declared "illegal and terrorist" by the government. Subsequently, the role of Martínez de Perón herself in the actions of Tripla A was the subject of controversy, which led to the opening of legal cases against her. Atilio Neira, Martínez de Perón's defense lawyer, would affirm in 2007 that the president "did not have information" regarding the crimes of the paramilitary group.
Situation of the provinces
In the March 1973 elections, the Justicialist Liberation Front (FREJULI) had taken control of twenty-two of Argentina's twenty-three provincial governments, only being defeated in the province of Neuquén, where the neo-Peronist Neuquino Popular Movement (Movimiento Popular Neuquino) won. MPN). Of these twenty-three governorates, twenty-two responded to the Justicialista Party and one (the province of Santa Fe) to the Integration and Development Movement (MID). The internal confrontation of Peronism, exacerbated during Perón's third term, led to numerous federal interventions or anticipated departures of governors. During Perón's third term, the province of Formosa, governed by Antenor Argentino Gauna, was intervened on November 19, 1973. Eleven days later, the missionary Juan Manuel Irrazábal and his lieutenant governor, César Napoleón Ayrault, died in a surprise accident by plane, leaving the province in a long interim. In turn, three governors abandoned power early: Oscar Bidegain from Buenos Aires (who resigned in January 1974), Ricardo Obregón Cano from Cordoba (overthrown in a police coup d'état that led to the intervention in February) and Mendoza's Alberto Martínez Baca (removed by impeachment by the legislature in June). The policy of intervening in governors politically identified with the leftist sector of Peronism, as well as those who were suspected of being involved in "Marxist infiltration" in Peronism, began to become more recurrent during Martínez de Perón's term.
Weeks after Martínez de Perón took office, in July 1974, a project to intervene the three powers of the province of Mendoza after the suspension from office of Alberto Martínez Baca and his replacement was brought to the Congress of the Argentine Nation by the lieutenant governor Carlos Mendoza, of the orthodox sector, in the framework of a political trial carried out by a sector of Peronism in the legislature with the support of the opposition parties, under the allegation that Martínez Baca responded to the "left-handed" sector of the Justicialismo. The movements to overthrow the Mendoza president from power had begun at the end of 1973, and in December of that year the branch of the provincial Justicialista Party had already been intervened. For his part, Martínez de Perón had a good personal relationship with Martínez Baca, whom he had met as a candidate for lieutenant governor of Ernesto Corvalán Nanclares in the provincial elections of April 1966, in the formula of vertical Justicialism against the Vandorista project, when the The president was Perón's personal delegate. Attempts at mediation between Martínez Baca and the opposition sectors of Justicialismo sponsored by the government, considered the only alternative to preserve the institutionality of the province, failed. The intervention was approved at the beginning of August and, on the 13th of the same month, Martínez de Perón appointed Antonio Cafiero as federal controller without the impeachment trial being consummated in the Senate of the province.
The next intervention carried out during the government of Martínez de Perón was that of the province of Santa Cruz. Jorge Cepernic, governor of said province, at the time the most remote and least populated in the country, belonged to the sector of "la Tendencia" and had been elected by an absolute majority of votes in March 1973. During his term, measures had been taken against the latifundio and allowed the filming of the film "La Patagonia rebelde" in Santa Cruz territory. Cepernic's government had suffered the progressive destabilization of conservative forces both inside and outside Peronism, who accused him of being a Marxist infiltrator. This harassment largely relaxed during Perón's third government, but three months after his death opposition to Capernic strengthened and forced his downfall. Days after the end of the session of Congress, Martínez de Perón decreed the federal intervention of the provincial executive power on October 7, 1974, replacing Cepernic with Augusto Pedro Saffores. "La Patagonia rebelde" was prohibited by the national government on October 12 and numerous officials of the Cepernic administration and militants of the Peronist sector that responded to him were arrested. The ex-governor himself was frequently the target of threats during the rest of Martínez de Perón's administration and the successor dictatorship that emerged in 1976 kept him detained for almost six years.
Days after the intervention in the province of Santa Cruz, Martínez de Perón traveled to the province of Salta, in the north of the country, to attend the VII National Eucharistic Congress, arriving there on October 13, 1974. By then, Salta Peronism faced a strong internal conflict suffered by Governor Miguel Ragone and the sector that responded to him, the Green List. In addition to orthodox Peronism, the president received strong attacks from the local right. Ragone was a native of Tucumán and did not belong to Salta's political elite, in addition to maintaining the custom of associating with people of the working class and humble, which led to his being accused of being a "communist" by the vast provincial oligarchy. During his visit to the district Martínez de Perón refused to share a stage with Ragone in Congress, which was seen as a sign of rejection. A month later, on November 23, the president decreed the federal intervention of Salta, replacing the governor with the inspector José Alejandro Mosquera. On March 11, 1976, thirteen days before the coup that overthrew Martínez de Perón, Ragone was kidnapped and assassinated by members of the Salta army and police linked to Triple A.
During the first weeks of 1975, seeking to generate a new political climate in the face of persistent instability, Martínez de Perón announced that he would begin a process of institutional normalization. To this end, on January 21, he ordered the intervention of the province of Misiones, which had been under a prolonged interim period since the end of 1973 by the president of the legislature, Luis Ángel Ripoll, despite the fact that current regulations required the to new elections to culminate the period after the simultaneous death of the governor and the lieutenant governor in a plane crash. Juan Carlos Taparelli assumed the intervention of the province and organized provincial elections for April 13, which were the only elections held during the government of Martínez de Perón. The two main candidates were the pro-government Justicialista Miguel Ángel Alterach, and the radical Ricardo Barrios Arrechea. Dissident Peronism participated as a coalition between the Third Position and Authentic Party parties, with the candidacy of Agustín Teófilo Puentes. Although the elections were largely free, the ruling party made numerous judicial and political movements that were perceived as an attempt to destabilize the possibilities of dissident Peronism, highlighting attempts to prosecute Puentes' candidacy under the allegation that the parties could not use Peronist symbols, as well as acts of censorship or aggression against the different candidates. Alterach openly defended the Martínez de Perón administration, using the campaign slogan "Isabel is Perón". In a polarized context, Alterach was elected governor by a low margin of votes with respect to that obtained by Irrazábal in the previous elections, of only 46.52% of the votes against 39.13% for Arrechea, which he managed to recover for the Official UCR almost the entire radical vote, a part until then in the hands of the Intransigent Party. Affected by the aggressive campaign against him and the polarization between FREJULI and the UCR, Puentes gathered only 9.62% of the votes.
Annihilation Decrees
During the last months of 1974, the government of Martínez de Perón began a process of repression and militarization of Argentine society, which lasted until his overthrow and was deepened and taken to the extreme by the subsequent dictatorship. On November 6 of that same year, five months after Martínez de Perón came to power, he imposed a state of siege throughout the national territory by decree. Among the nominal objectives of the legitimized repression, the decree established as its purpose: "With all energy, to eradicate expressions of a pathological barbarism that has been unleashed as a form of a treacherous and criminal terrorist plan against the Nation." Under the protection of said decree, numerous political and union leaders were detained without trial, highlighting the "Operativo Serpiente Colorada del Paraná" against the combative unionism of the metallurgical center in Villa Constitución, detaining more than three hundred people without trial and instigating a campaign of terror by the Triple A against the local population, which unleashed demonstrations and strikes against the government, resulting in between twenty and thirty people murdered or disappeared. In the course of the operation, the first Center was installed in the singles dormitories of the Acindar company clandestine detention (CCD), which would later multiply during the dictatorship.
On February 5, 1975, Martínez de Perón issued Decree 261/75, also known as the first annihilation decree, which established an emergency zone in a sector of the province of Tucumán (then under the provincial government of the Justicialist Amado Juri) in order to combat the guerrilla called the People's Revolutionary Army (ERP) militarily. The ERP had established a strong rural presence in the Tucuman district, and its main intention was to establish a "liberated zone" or "revolutionary focus" within the province to, once the territory was controlled, initiate an armed conflict against the Argentine state and seek international recognition. Montoneros also maintained a small nucleus in Tucumán, with around thirty fighters, which would increase to one hundred the following year. The decree signed by Martínez de Perón, of a secret nature and unknown to public opinion, authorized the army to "carry out the military operations that are necessary in order to neutralize and/or annihilate the actions of subversive elements that operate in the province of Tucumán », making available to the Army the forces of the Federal Police, the Tucumán Police and the support of the Navy and the Air Force.
The issuance of this decree to annihilate subversion was a prelude to State terrorism. This solution did not fully satisfy some military sectors, such as the main person in charge of the operation, General Acdel Vilas, who acknowledged having exceeded his duties, not respecting the spirit of the presidential order and going over the legal political authorities of the country. Although the Operation included a series of military combats in the rural area with the guerrilla groups, the military action was concentrated in the cities, repressing civilians who were active in political, union, student, religious, and social organizations, generally considered "leftist" elements. Vilas considered that the supposed "war" waged in Tucumán was "eminently cultural" since the guerrilla in the Tucuman mount was "only the armed manifestation of the subversive process and not the most important one".
Under this first decree, the Army implemented a State terrorism regime in Tucumán for the first time, which would be applied to the entire country after the coup d'état. To this end, the Army illegally detained thousands of people, established a clandestine detention center in a school in Famaillá where they kept the detainees disappeared, systematically tortured the detainees, carried out illegal public executions, and made the bodies of the women disappear. people murdered. Vilas was finally relieved on December 18, 1975, being replaced by Antonio Domingo Bussi. Bussi intensified the terrorist action of the State and in the last three months of the constitutional government, 91% of the victims were detained and disappeared. He also transferred the CCD from Famaillá to the Ingenio Nueva Baviera, and opened another thirteen clandestine detention centers. with the historian Felipe Pigna, the meetings during which the coup d'état was prepared began in early 1975, at the ranch of José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz, a key figure in the economic policy carried out by the de facto regime . According to the account of Julio González, private secretary of Martínez de Perón, Colonel Jorge Montiel, secretary of the SIDE (disappeared), had confessed to him that he had information that officers of the Armed Forces had contact with the guerrilla leadership to destabilize the government.
Martínez de Perón made speeches defending the repression against the guerrilla organizations, alleging that they endangered social peace. On May 1, 1975, in commemoration of Workers' Day, and with the country in a particular state of tension, Martínez de Perón made a strong speech in front of the Plaza de Mayo against the guerrillas, affirming that he would fulfill his objective of "take the country where it belongs, as General Perón wanted" at all costs, and affirmed that: "I will hit those anti-patrias who oppose them with the whip." The crowd responded with loud chants of "we're going to bust them." Martínez de Perón added: «We have had too much patience and understanding. I'm not afraid of them."
Economic and social measures
End of the Social Pact established by Cámpora and health policy
Upon assuming the presidency, Martínez de Perón inherited the Social Pact policies established during the government of Héctor José Cámpora and which continued during Perón's third presidency under the administration of Economy Minister José Ber Gelbard. The "Pact" had three main objectives: to achieve a participation of wage earners of 40-50% of the national income in a period of four years; reduce the existing high inflation; and consolidate economic growth. Its main agreement was the resignation of the unions to carry out paritarias (negotiation of collective agreements) for two years, in exchange for the companies freezing prices and making a fixed-sum wage increase that represented 20% for the most neglected categories. of real increase. At first, Martínez de Perón promised to maintain the policies of the "Pact", as well as the economic nationalism that Perón encouraged. Two of the first major economic policy decisions were the enactment of a new labor contract law favorable to workers and the granting of a monopoly over gas stations to the state oil company YPF.
In the first months after Perón's death, however, the social pact quickly collapsed. Argentine merchants committed agio (shortage of essential products to speculate on a price increase); hiding basic products such as oil and sugar and developing a black market for products. Just three months after becoming president, Martínez de Perón replaced Gelbard with Alfredo Gómez Morales, a historical figure of Peronism who had already served as Minister of Economic Affairs during Perón's second term. The end of the Social Pact reopened the parities for sectoral collective negotiations, suspended by the unions in agreement with the government since 1973.
Despite the growing political instability, some measures taken during the government of Martínez de Perón lasted for many years, such as the nationalization of several television channels and the enactment of the labor contract law. At the labor level, important collective agreements were also updated, such as that of commercial employees, still in force. At the level of health policy, through Pedro Rolan Yáñez, in charge of the Public Health portfolio, broad improvements in health were achieved in public policies and health plans were modeled that improved benefits at the state level. Likewise, Argentina was led to intervene within the World Health Organization (WHO). This active role in public health matters was maintained until the resignation of Yáñez, who served as a separate minister of the Social Welfare portfolio between July 21, 1974 and August 1, 1975.
Other measures, such as YPF's monopoly on fuel sales, were repealed by the military government. A social measure such as the freezing of home purchase loan installments made it possible for many families to have their first property. However, and despite a devaluation of the currency, the Argentine economy suffered serious damage from rising inflation, with the paralysis of capital investments. Added to these difficulties was the suspension, by several European countries, of Argentine meat exports. The monetarist solution attempted by Minister Gómez Morales was unsuccessful, and caused a sharp retraction of liquidity, initiating a complicated process. One of the lowest unemployment rates in history had been reached, but at the cost of very high inflation.
The “Rodrigazo”
In 1975 Argentina had come to be among the countries with the greatest income equality outside the Eastern Bloc. Faced with the failure of Alfredo Gómez Morales, whose policy had notably increased the fiscal deficit, the extreme right-wing Peronist headed by López Rega was able to impose Celestino Rodrigo as his successor, who took office on June 2, 1975. On June 4, he announced the economic policy to be implemented, designed by Vice Minister Ricardo Zinn, which included measures such as the devaluation of more than 150% of the peso in relation to the commercial dollar, an average increase of 100% in the price of all public services and transportation and a rise of up to 180% in fuel. In return, he announced a 45% increase in wages. Its objective was to advance prices to wages, to liquidate the debts of the companies and then stabilize and free the economy for the entry of foreign capital. To justify the measures adopted, Rodrigo enunciated a series of postulates contrary to consumerism, asking the all Argentines to reduce their spending, especially luxury and imported items. This adjustment policy would be known as the "Rodrigazo", remembered by historiography as the beginning of a series of economic policies focused on "adjustment". and the "openness" of the economy, which ultimately ended up harming wage earners and production, especially industrial production. Rodrigo's policy established a ceiling of 40% for salary increases agreed in joint collective bargaining. The unions, which had agreed with the employers' chambers on salary increases that averaged double the ceiling, harshly rejected the economic policy and protests against it broke out throughout the country. The General Labor Confederation (CGT) demanded that the president to standardize the collective agreements. However, the government of Martínez de Perón refused, so the CGT declared the first general strike against a Peronist government, which took place for forty-eight hours between 7 and 8 February. July.
Union pressure would achieve an average wage increase of 180%, which, in conjunction with Rodrigo's measures, raised inflation to levels never seen in Argentina. At the same time, the crisis destroyed political legitimacy of López Rega and the sector of Peronism that responded to him. During the last days of June and the first half of July, there were demonstrations demanding the departure of the López Rega government with the slogan: "Isabel, courage, al sorcerer, give him raje!" According to historian Marcelo Larraquy, during a mass rally against the Minister of Social Welfare in Plaza de Mayo, López Rega would have violently demanded Martínez de Perón to go out on the balcony to claim his figure, slapping her when she refused to do so, which would have led the presidential custody to threaten him. After spending a few days locked up with the president in the presidential residence in Olivos, López Rega finally He finally presented his resignation on July 11, being appointed ambassador of Argentina in Spain, which constituted a kind of exile de facto .
Economic consequences before the coup d'état
Rodrigo and Zinn resigned from their positions a few days after López Rega, keeping the Economy portfolio temporarily vacant due to the debacle. The economy went into recession and the country was on the verge of default on its foreign debt, which is why the government was forced to make an agreement with the International Monetary Fund, the first made by a government Peronist. Martínez de Perón appointed Pedro José Bonanni as minister, but his decision to summon the businessmen and marginalize the unions from the consultations to prepare a new economic plan precipitated his resignation just three weeks after he was appointed. On August 11, Antonio Cafiero took office as minister, who failed to change the catastrophic course that the economy was taking, aggravated by the operations that the coup groups were already carrying out. By the end of the year, the public deficit reached 12.4% and all the social indicators deteriorated rapidly. On February 3, 1976, Cafiero was replaced by Emilio Mondelli, under whose management Argentina had the first hyperinflationary outbreak in its history in March of that same year, when the increase in prices reached 54% per month and the coup group took power. to impose a dictatorship that would combine systematic state terrorism with the first neoliberal economic plan in Argentina.
Relationship with feminism
Despite being the first woman to hold the head of the Argentine State, the relationship of the feminist groups then active in Argentina with Martínez de Perón (who generally resorted to a conservative Catholic and right-wing discourse) was tense, and his period of government was not characterized by practically any institutional policy that increased the rights of women. first half of Martínez de Perón's government) described feminism as "a redoubt of Marxist, lesbian and ugly women". The thirty-nine ministers in the different portfolios that Martínez de Perón held during his term were men. Shortly before After Perón's death in March 1974, his administration had criminalized the free sale of birth control pills, a measure that was maintained by the Martínez de Perón government. There was a markedly anti-abortionist position, describing the feminist struggle for the legalization of abortion or bonding divorce as a combination of "non-Argentine interests" that sought to "destroy the family" and "threaten motherhood as a natural function of women." In 1975, the United Nations Organization declared the "International Women's Year", and in April of that year the government of Martínez de Perón created a commission to organize the celebrations. However, the government demonstrated an almost open rejection of the participation of the main feminist groups in the country (the Argentine Feminist Union and the Feminist Liberation Movement), and its real activity was very little, with the exception of the organization of a seminar scheduled for March 1976. The president participated in a Women's Congress in August 1975, but feminist organizations were excluded from its realization, under the allegation that they "promoted the fight against men".
During the second half of the year, the representative from Jujuy, María Cristina Guzmán, presented the project for Law 21,182 on shared parental authority, one of the main demands of the feminist movement. Until then the man had all the rights over the parental authority of the children, while the woman only had obligations in this regard. Argentina had once had shared parental authority legislation during Perón's first presidency, but this was repealed by the "Revolución Libertadora" and was not recovered. Despite the fact that the previous legislation was considered an old Peronist conquest and that the project was ultimately approved by both houses of Congress, Martínez de Perón vetoed it on October 22, 1975, under the allegation that it was "unclear" with respect to whether parental authority was shared or joint, placing the man and the woman only in an "indistinct" position. The unmarked position and the almost null action on feminist issues of a government headed by a woman was the target of deep criticism from left and center-left figures in the country. The newspaper Avanzada Soc ialista praised the situation in France, which had just legalized abortion, and Italy, which was in the process of introducing a binding divorce law, to compare it with the situation in Argentina, stating that: «The only law proposed in so far this year in reference to the situation of women, it was vetoed by the Executive Power".
Foreign Relations
Turn to the right
The government of Martínez de Perón took place in an international context of pronounced turn to the right. The dictatorships that surrounded Argentina since the second half of 1973 had been consolidated. During this period, Operation Condor was formed, supported by the United States, to coordinate intelligence services and generalize state terrorism in South America. At the same time, in 1975, Chile became the first country in the world to apply the new economic model developed from the ideas of Milton Friedman of the University of Chicago, which would be known as neoliberalism. The international policy of Martínez de Perón, carried out by his foreign minister and member of the anti-communist Propaganda Due Alberto Vignes lodge, abandoned the Third World imprint and non-alignment in the Cold War, which it had had during the Cámpora and Perón presidencies, especially in relations with other Latin American countries. Argentina cooled relations with those countries whose governments were considered "leftist" by the United States (Cuba, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela). The government of Martínez de Perón canceled all the negotiations that they had been carrying out to incorporate Argentina into the Andean Pact. previous Peronist presidents and instead sought to establish a regional pole of power, on the basis of sharing an anti-communist ideology, with the dictatorships of Bolivia, Chile and Uruguay, which in turn would curb the "expansionism" of Brazil. In particular, Argentina had a diplomatic conflict with Mexico, due to the protection that this country gave to a large number of Argentines persecuted by Triple A, including former President Cámpora, making use of the right of asylum.
Policy regarding the Falkland Islands
During Perón's last government, secret negotiations had been carried out between the Argentine and British governments in the context of the dispute between the two countries over the sovereignty of the Malvinas Islands. The discussion revolved around the possibility of establishing a joint administration of the territory under an "Anglo-Argentine condominium" until a possible complete transfer of sovereignty. Although Perón had favored the idea, the negotiations cooled down after his death and the assumption of Martínez de Perón. At that time, Argentina exercised its sovereignty in the exclusive economic zone around the Malvinas from 12 nautical miles and up to 200 until 1982 without the United Kingdom, which did not claim those waters, objected to administrative acts, such as the interdiction of foreign vessels fishing illegally in the area. An act of this type occurred on the British research vessel RRS Shackleton on February 4, 1976, effectively towards the end of the government. of Martínez de Perón, when the destroyer of the Argentine Navy ARA Almirante Storni (D-24) fired shots at its bow because it was carrying out investigations without Argentine authorization ntina 80 miles from the Falkland Islands. The ship was then escorted by the destroyer and an aircraft to Puerto Argentino/Stanley.
Reaching the military and health problems
The health of Martínez de Perón was the subject of controversy during her presidency, being seen as an infirm woman who suffered constant nervous breakdowns and unhealthy weight loss during her term in office, which led to continued furloughs for health reasons On July 25, 1975, two weeks after the fall of López Rega, a CIA report summarized that: "The doctors have confined Mrs. Perón to her bed, which triggered a new round of speculation about whether she will apply for a license, possibly for a long period of two months. Although her press assistants describe her difficulties as flu-like, she suffers from severe nervous breakdown and requires frequent heavy sedation. He lost a lot of weight." The CIA was concerned about a possible increase in the power vacuum after López Rega's departure from government, describing Martínez de Perón as a woman prone to reacting to personal and political anguish with depression., suggesting that this could be a cause of his health problems. Faced with mounting political pressure against him after the fall of López Rega, Raúl Lastiri resigned as president of the Chamber of Deputies, and lawyer Ítalo Luder was installed as provisional president of the Senate and constitutional successor to Martínez de Perón. On September 13, 1975, Martínez de Perón requested leave for health reasons. By then he could barely sleep and weighed only 41 kilograms, so Luder assumed the exercise of executive power on an interim basis. During his leave, Martínez de Perón stayed in Ascochinga, near the provincial capital of Córdoba, in a colony on vacation from the Air Force, accompanied by Alicia Raquel Hartridge de Videla, Delia Viera de Massera and Lía González de Fautario, the wives of the three commanders of the Armed Forces: Jorge Rafael Videla, Emilio Eduardo Massera, and Héctor Fautario.
During his brief period in charge of the executive branch, Luder reinforced the power of the military and sanctioned, at his request, three other annihilation decrees that extended the order to "annihilate" guerrilla actions throughout the country: he created a National Council of Defense controlled by the Armed Forces and placed the national and provincial police under their orders. One of the Army's first decisions was to militarize the country into five zones, within which each corps commander had autonomy to order actions necessary, including the establishment of clandestine detention and torture centers. Luder also announced that the elections scheduled for March 1977 would be brought forward, which would be held in the second half of 1976, although the date would not be confirmed until until the last days of the year. In a meeting of the high command of the Army directed by the then Commander-in-Chief of the Army Jorge R afael Videla, with the participation of French and American military advisers, the National Counterinsurgency Strategy was secretly approved, where it was ordered to dispense with the procedures and guarantees of the rule of law and to carry out repressive actions clandestinely and without recognition by the state authorities. Shortly after, on October 23, 1975, at the XI Conference of American Armies held in Montevideo, Videla publicly declared that "If necessary, in Argentina all the people necessary to achieve peace in the country must die." The military zoning of the country established by Directive 404/75 of October 28, placed the country under the autonomous power of the Armed Forces above the constitutional provincial powers; a policy that pursued a possible process of bordaberrización (dictatorship with a civilian president) similar to that carried out in neighboring Uruguay by then-president Juan María Bordaberry.
Although numerous sources document that the coup was planned even before Martínez de Perón took office in case Perón died in office, during the end of September and the first half of October it was considered feasible that Martínez de Perón extended his license indefinitely or resigned from the presidency, placing the head of state in the hands of Luder definitively and allowing an institutional coup that would be "against Isabel, but not against everyone". This option was seen as the only way to avoid a new coup. On October 17, 1975, however, Martínez de Perón returned to the presidency and categorically rejected the idea of resigning before the media. According to his nurse, Norma Bailo, in a later interview, he had the impression that the president did not make decisions by herself, giving indications that in reality she had the intention of resigning several times, but was forced not to do so. It is considered that, from the decision of Martínez de Perón not to resign to the presidency and leaving Luder as interim president, it was practically impossible to avoid the coup.
Political crisis and overthrow
Operation Scoop
Both the Montoneros group, as well as the People's Revolutionary Army, had been carrying out actions aimed at occupying the space that Juan Domingo Perón had denied them and for this they carried out guerrilla activities until October 5, 1975 when they took over the Regiment of Mount Infantry No. 29, which at that time was the second in fire power in the country, in an action that they called "Operation First." The objective of the operation was to gain a large arsenal that would allow them to carry out actions on a larger scale while considering that other cells could replicate the attack and that the people would support them.
After the regiment was taken over, a 30-minute combat occurred with a balance of 24 deaths: 12 Montoneros and 12 soldiers, of whom 10 were conscripts. The First Operation included the hijacking of Aerolíneas Argentinas flight 706 at Aeroparque and the seizure of the Formosa airport. The guerrillas carried 11 FAL rifles, 18 Halcón submachine guns, 5 FN rifles, 1 Madsen submachine gun, 2 shotguns, 5 mines, 51 grenades, revolvers, and 19 vehicles. A total of 60 guerrillas participated and for the attack they set up operational bases in the city of Buenos Aires, Rosario, Santa Fe, Resistencia and Formosa.
One of the first victims was Sergeant Víctor Sanabria, who was shot while trying to give a warning on the radio. Another group killed five conscripts sleeping inside the guard room, while several grenades were thrown through the bathroom windows, hitting other soldiers while they were showering.
December 1975 uprising
Martínez de Perón's refusal to resign led to the final resolution of the Armed Forces to overthrow the constitutional government. Videla respectively, had begun planning the coup, but the commander of the Air Force, Fautario, refused to support them. On December 18, 1975, an attempted coup led by Brigadier Jesús Orlando Cappellini took place. Simultaneously, the coup group manipulated the situation to force the replacement of Fautario and his replacement by Orlando Ramón Agosti, favorable to the coup. The government, which had received the first irregular signals on December 15, considered that relieving Fautario the rebellion would be put down, believing that it was only an internal dispute within the Armed Forces. The Minister of the Interior, Ángel Federico Robledo, stated on national television: "An institutional conflict, related to the conduct of the air weapon, has been used by a small group of retired officers and civilians to turn it into a subversive attempt, which did not find an echo either in the Armed Forces or in the people”. The rebellion led by Cappellini, however, continued until December 22 and included a bombardment of the VII Brigade with Air Force planes, which was stopped at the last moment through the mediation of the military vicar Adolfo Tortolo. the coup failed due to Videla's refusal to support an absolute overthrow of the Martínez de Perón government at that time, considering that the time was not yet adequate to carry it out. Despite the uprising, Martínez de Perón conceded a national chain message during which he repeatedly refused to resign, although he announced the advancement of the presidential elections for October 17, 1976. At the same time, he declared that he would not allow anyone "for petty purposes" to try to usurp power unconstitutionally.
Although the uprising was not successful in overthrowing Martínez de Perón, the coup group managed to use him to get rid of Fautario, the last official loyal to the constitutional government and the only obstacle among the pro-Videla sector on the road to a coup d'état and a successful takeover. Days after the overthrow attempt, on December 23, an unsuccessful assault on a battalion took place in the town of Monte Chingolo, Buenos Aires province, by the People's Revolutionary Army, which resulted in numerous casualties for the guerrilla organization, with several prisoners clandestinely executed after surrendering. Videla then spent Christmas Eve in Tucumán, where Operativo Independencia was still taking place, and used his time there to harangue the armed forces deployed in the place. Videla then imposed a ninety-day ultimatum (until March 24) on the Martínez de Perón government to "order the country". A negotiation on December 29, between Martínez de Perón and the military vicar Adolfo Tortolo during which the latter tried to convince her to leave power, but failed after the president again refused to resign, to which the military leadership replied that her departure from the presidency would be "the only non-negotiable point". Martínez de Perón met then personally with the three commanders on January 5, 1976, again rejecting their requests for resignation. New pressure to force his resignation, also unsuccessful, occurred on February 17 of the same year. Martínez de Perón would clarify in private to his Defense Minister, José Deheza, that he considered that resigning would imply "validating what is going to come later". The coup d'état had been planned since October 1975 and the State Department of the The United States knew of the preparations two months before it occurred.
Coup preparations
On August 14, 1975, a month after López Rega's resignation, a scandal erupted when allegations arose that Martínez de Perón had embezzled large sums of money from the "Solidarity Crusade," a charity created and directed from his government, to his personal accounts in Spain, an accusation published in the opposition newspaper La Prensa. The accusations led to an investigation by Congress starting in November. After the attempted coup In December, the Integration and Development Movement (MID), the second largest party of the pro-government Justicialist Liberation Front (FREJULI) headed by former President Arturo Frondizi, announced its departure from the pro-government coalition of which it had been a part for three years. At the same time, the Justicialist blocs in both houses of Congress faced a strong division between a "verticalist" sector, favorable to the government, and a "rebel" sector. The division left the ruling party without its own majority in the Chamber of Deputies, going from having 142 deputies to having 102 against 129 that added the opposition (the UCR, the FUFEPO, the APR and some provincial parties) adding to the anti-verticalist sectors, leaving others 12 deputies in independent positions. That same month the government suffered a strong break with the governor of Buenos Aires, Victorio Calabró, who stated that, with Martínez de Perón continuing in power, it would be impossible for the constitutional government to arrive with success to the presidential elections, causing a failed attempt at federal intervention. The Minister of Economy, Antonio Cafiero, was replaced by Emilio Mondelli, who announced his "Economic Emergency Plan" that included new ceiling prices for bread, noodles, cheese, butter, powdered milk and oil. The measure was in force until the beginning of the military government.
A sector of the opposition led by the radical senator from Buenos Aires, Fernando de la Rúa, promoted a process of impeachment against Martínez de Perón. There were two attempts to remove the president by institutional means, one presented by the San Juan deputy Héctor R. Valenzuela and another by the Mendoza democrat Francisco Moyano; although neither of them obtained enough votes to prosper, the latter motivated an intense debate in the Chamber of Deputies on February 25, 1976, a month before the coup. After the attempt, Lorenzo Miguel announced that the 62 Organizations would once again support the government, after a period of marked criticism.
During the last months before the coup, numerous opposition media outlets played a very important role in weakening the constitutional government and instilling in the population the idea that a coup was a foregone conclusion, and even preferable. Throughout 1975, various newspapers highlighted the president's inability to govern, as well as sought to discredit any proposal to seek a legal way out of the political crisis, trying to deepen the state of instability in the country. government of Martínez de Perón were almost daily until the day of the coup, and in recent weeks newspapers such as the daily Clarín or La Nación openly incited the Armed Forces to intervene to put an end to the constitutional regime. Some political leaders issued statements about their opinion regarding a possible coup in the days prior to the uprising military. Liberal-conservative leader Álvaro Alsogaray was skeptical of the idea of ousting Martínez de Perón during an interview on March 21, saying it would be questionable to do so at a time when the opposition had a never-before-seen chance of defeating Peronism. by electoral means, and declaring: "Why transform them into misunderstood martyrs of democracy, precisely at the moment when they will be forced to declare their great failure?". On March 16, Balbín had given a speech on national television of radio and television where he affirmed that the isolation of the government had caused the State to stop working after the death of Perón, and culminated with the phrase: «All the incurables who are cured five minutes before death. I wish that we Argentines, today, would not start counting the last five minutes."
On March 23, 1976, the last day under the government of Martínez de Perón, the newspaper La Razón headlined: "Everything is said, the imminent end": while the front page of < i>Clarín established "Changes in the country are imminent". Deputies began to remove their belongings from the Palace of Congress and request an advance on their allowances.
The 1976 Coup
Shortly after midnight on March 24, 1976, Martínez de Perón boarded the presidential helicopter with his private secretary Julio Carlos González; the head of his personal custody, Rafael Luisi; a young officer from the 1 Patricios Infantry Regiment; Frigate Lieutenant Antonio Diamante and two Air Force pilots, headed for the presidential residence in Olivos. During the flight, the pilot announced that the vehicle had a malfunction and that they had to make an unscheduled landing at Aeroparque, entering the delegation to the offices of the head of the Base. At approximately 3:10 in the morning, General José Rogelio Villarreal announced to Martínez de Perón: "Ma'am, the Armed Forces have decided to take political control of the country and you remain arrested”, formally beginning the coup d'état. Martínez de Perón asked if she would be shot, to which Villarreal replied that the military would guarantee his physical integrity. The president denounced the betrayal of the Armed Forces to her government and sought to negotiate with the coup leaders the closure of Congress and the appointment of four soldiers to her cabinet, threatening strikes and massive demonstrations by the unions if they consummated the overthrow of she. Villarreal replied that "they have drawn an ideal country, a country that does not exist." Martínez de Perón was then transferred to the province of Neuquén as a prisoner, and in the morning a Military Junta assumed the government of the country, establishing the dictatorship calling itself the "National Reorganization Process", which invested Jorge Rafael Videla as de facto president on March 29, 1976.
Cabinet of Ministers
 María Estela Martínez de Perón | ||
|---|---|---|
| Portfolio | Owner | Period |
| Ministry of the Interior | Benito Llambí Alberto Rocamora Antonio J. Benítez Vicente Damascus Angel F. Robledo Roberto Antonio Ares | 1 July 1974 – 13 August 1974 14 August 1974 – 11 July 1975 11 July 1975 - 11 August 1975 11 August 1975 - 16 September 1975 16 September 1975 – 15 January 1976 15 January 1976 – 24 March 1976 |
| Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship | Alberto Juan Vignes Angel Federico Robledo Manuel Aráuz Castex Raúl Quijano | 1 July 1974 – 11 August 1975 11 August 1975 - 16 September 1975 2 October 1975 – 14 January 1976 19 January 1976 – 24 March 1976 |
| Ministry of Economy | José Ber Gelbard Alfredo Gómez Morales Celestino Rodrigo Pedro José Bonanni Antonio Cafiero Emilio Mondelli | 1 July 1974 – 21 October 1974 21 October 1974 – 1 June 1975 2 June 1975 - 17 July 1975 22 July 1975 - 11 August 1975 14 August 1975 – 2 February 1976 3 February 1976 – 24 March 1976 |
| Ministry of Culture and Education | Jorge Alberto Taiana Oscar Ivanissevich Pedro J. Arrighi | 1 July 1974 – 13 August 1974 14 August 1974 - 11 August 1975 11 August 1975 – 24 March 1976 |
| Ministry of Social Welfare and Public Health | José López Rega Carlos Villone Rodolfo Roballos Carlos Alberto Emery Aníbal Demarco | 1 July 1974 – 11 July 1975 11 July 1975 - 20 July 1975 20 July 1975 - 11 August 1975 11 August 1975 - 29 October 1975 29 October 1975 – 24 March 1976 |
| Ministry of Public Health | Pedro Rolan Yáñez | 21 July 1974 - 1 August 1975 |
| Ministry of National Defence | Angel Federico Robledo Adolfo M. Savino Jorge Garrido Thomas Vottero Ricardo César Guardo José A. Deheza | 1 July 1974 – 13 August 1974 14 August 1974 - 11 July 1975 11 July 1975 - 16 September 1975 16 September 1975 – 15 January 1976 22 January 1976 – 8 March 1976 12 March 1976 – 24 March 1976 |
| Ministry of Justice | Antonio Juan Benítez E. Corvalan Nanclares José A. Deheza Augusto Pedro Saffores | 1 July 1974 – 10 June 1975 10 June 1975 – 14 January 1976 15 January 1976 - 12 March 1976 12 March 1976 – 24 March 1976 |
| Ministry of Labour | Ricardo Otero Cecilio Conditi Carlos F. Ruckauf Miguel Unamuno | 1 July 1974 – 11 June 1975 29 June 1975 – 11 August 1975 11 August 1975 – 3 February 1976 3 February 1976 – 24 March 1976 |
Post-Presidency Activities
Imprisonment, later release and exile to Spain
After the coup d'état, Martínez de Perón was arrested and detained in the presidential residence of El Messidor, in Villa La Angostura, Neuquén, where legal proceedings began against her for the "Solidarity Crusade" scandal. and for the use of "reserved funds" suspected of being illegal. The former president was kept completely incommunicado, without magazines or the possibility of speaking on the phone, under the care of her Spanish maid Rosario Álvarez Espinosa. She appeared before judicial interrogations at the same residence, and in May of the same year she was prosecuted by Judge Tulio García Moritán. Her emotional and physical problems worsened during her imprisonment, as she was subjected to strict military surveillance and generally dedicating her time to praying and taking short walks in custody. Months after the coup, Emilio Eduardo Massera decided to take over the detention of the former president and organized a new transfer and accommodation for Martínez de Perón in the Azul Naval Arsenal, in the province of Buenos Aires, where his mental health seemed to recover.
The scope of the relationship between Massera and Martínez de Perón is the subject of controversy, with statements and alleged evidence that they had a love affair, a theory supported by Perón's great-nephew (Alejandro Rodríguez Perón) and the journalist Luis Ventura, who claimed to have private correspondence between the former president and the then member of the dictatorial junta.
On June 14, 1977, during his stay in Azul, a judicial summons arrived at Martínez de Perón announcing that he would be investigated again the next day, causing him a nervous breakdown that led to a surprise suicide attempt on his part by swallowing a whole bottle of valium pills. It was necessary to perform a stomach pump to save her. She continued to maintain unstable physical and mental health for the next few days due to her fear of judicial investigations, suffering from irritable bowel syndrome and back pain, requiring kinesiology treatments. Although she was dismissed from the "reserved funds" case, on February 4, 1981, the day she turned 50, she still had to serve a sentence for the "Solidarity Crusade" incident. Finally, on July 9 of that same year, having served two thirds of the sentence, she was released under the agreement to go into exile from the country. Martínez de Perón then left Argentina and settled in Spain permanently.
Installed in Madrid, Spain, the former president adopted a low profile and refused meetings with other exiled politicians, such as Carlos Saúl Menem or Deolindo Bittel. the Malvinas war to Italo Luder, who at that time was one of his lawyers, in addition to conveying to him his "full solidarity with the recovery of the islands for the effective sovereignty of Argentina". In the run-up to the 1983 Argentine presidential elections, Martínez de Perón published his book, "Las verdades del justicialismo". Around 1984, he decided to no longer participate in politics. From then on he concentrated on fighting legal battles through his proxies to recover the funds restored to Perón and lost after his overthrow.
Trip to Argentina after the return to democracy
Despite her growing refusal to remain active in politics, Martínez de Perón remained nominally president of the Justicialista Party until almost nine years after her ouster, although real political power within the armed party was retained by the group union headed by Lorenzo Miguel and his vice president Deolindo Felipe Bittel. Martínez de Perón declared himself dispensable with respect to the party inmates on April 16, 1983. The difficult internship led to the presidential candidacy of former provisional president of the Senate Ítalo Luder, with Bittel as a running mate. During the campaign for the presidential elections of October 30, 1983, it was initially speculated that the former president would move to Argentina to lead a Peronist act in favor of Luder, an idea that was later discarded, with the president of the party remaining in Spain during the elections, without being politically rehabilitated until after the elected government was sworn in. Ultimately, the elections resulted in a wide victory for Raúl Alfonsín, candidate of the Radical Civic Union, and the first defeat electoral party of the PJ in any type of free election since the founding of the movement in 1946. Martínez de Perón returned to Argentina in December for the first time after more than two years, as a guest of honor to attend the inauguration of Alfonsín as President of the Nation. Upon her arrival in the country, where she was received by the authorities of the de facto government with the honors required for a former Head of State or, she stated:
I don't bring any complaints or grievances on this happy day. Above the miseries that sought to overwhelm me I rescue the happiness of the return and also the circumstance of integrating myself into the longings of the Argentine people. I am concerned to contribute to the consolidation of the Peronist party.
On December 14, shortly before returning to Spain to organize his final return to Argentina in January 1984, Martínez de Perón organized a meeting behind closed doors for the leadership of the Justicialista Party at the Hotel Batien in Buenos Aires, during which she announced the start of the reorganization of Peronism and questioned the figures who "betrayed" her and delayed her political rehabilitation until long after having agreed on the presidential formula, with the obvious objective of avoiding her participation in the discussion.
These actions corresponded to a pact between Martínez de Perón and the Alfonsín government (denied by the latter) that sought to promote in Congress a special amnesty law for the former president, which established that she could not be tried for any charge prior to the military coup due to the fact that it was overthrown through an institutional breakdown and not by a conventional political trial, in exchange for publicly disavowing the party leadership of Justicialism. Law 23,062 was sanctioned on May 23, 1984, called an "instrument of historical reparation". That same month, the former president was invited by the radical government to participate in political talks with the justicialist opposition, as president of the party. Martínez de Perón played a constructive role during the talks, supporting possible cooperation between the CGT and the Alfonsín government.
After one last public appearance as a leader of Peronism during the November 1984 plebiscite on the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Argentina and Chile to close the Beagle Conflict with the neighboring country, Martínez de Perón returned to Spain, where decided to establish his residence. On February 21, 1985, within the framework of the "Peronist renewal" that implied a harsh political internal struggle between the orthodox and renovating sectors of the PJ, Martínez de Perón resigned as president of the party; the leadership is in charge of Vicente Leonides Saadi, first vice president of the National Council of the PJ, ratified after the National Congress of Santa Rosa (July 1985), linked to the orthodox sector of the Peronist internal. Some time later (January 10, 1988) the leadership would be handed over to Antonio Cafiero, leader of the renovating Peronism that led the party to win the 1987 legislative elections in addition to competing in the 1988 presidential primaries where he was defeated by Carlos Saúl Menem.
In November 1988, he returned to Argentina for a brief period of time and met with President Alfonsín. During his visit he blurted out "Don't bother me!" to a group of journalists who surrounded her at the time of her arrival, a phrase that would be frequently parodied and highlighted by the press due to her strong Spanish accent, very different from the Argentine accent. In 1989, after the Justicialista victory in the presidential elections In 1989, there was speculation that Martínez de Perón could be named Argentine ambassador to Vatican City, which was denied.
Last years in the public sphere
During the tenure of Carlos Saúl Menem (1989-1999) he reached an agreement with the Argentine State on outstanding debts for assets confiscated from Perón during the military government, for which he received more than four million dollars, throughout which adds the lifetime monthly pension that corresponds to her as former president. The ANSES deposits her assets every month in Banco Nación, which remits them abroad.At the end of the 1990s, Martínez de Perón moved to Villanueva de la Cañada in Madrid. There she settled in her new house where she lives with a woman in charge of taking care of her and a driver. From then on she withdrew completely from the public sphere, refusing constant requests for interviews or political visits and it became very unusual for her to leave the property.
The last ceremonies for the inauguration of a president that Isabel attended were the two held by the Peronist Carlos Menem (the first in 1989, together with former president Frondizi and Antonio Cafiero, and the second in 1995).
On August 24, 1994, she attended the swearing in of the new national constitution at the San José Palace in Concepción del Uruguay (Entre Ríos) as a special guest.
On April 18, 1995, with the almost unnoticed death of former president Arturo Frondizi (1958-1962), Martínez de Perón became the last living ex-president from a constitutional experience prior to the current democratic period. On June 16, 2020, she surpassed Roberto Marcelo Levingston (de facto president between 1971 and 1972) as the former president with the longest post-presidential life in Argentine history, at 46 years, 11 months and 29 days. Levingston had died on June 17, 2015, 44 years, 2 months, and 22 days after leaving office. After his death, she is also the living ex-president of the longest presidential term, and has survived her four de facto successors (Jorge Rafael Videla, Roberto Eduardo Viola, Leopoldo Galtieri and Reynaldo Bignone) and four of her constitutional successors (Raúl Alfonsín, Carlos Saúl Menem, Fernando de la Rúa and Néstor Kirchner).
Attempts on his life
During her tenure as vice president and as president, she was heavily guarded by the continuous threats of bombs and assassinations made to her person by parts of the ultra-left guerrilla groups.
In 1984, ten years after the death of her husband, a still unknown group of people placed a bomb on an Aerolíneas Argentinas plane, which was discovered in time by the Airport Force, saving her and her lives. 211 people. Upon reaching her destination, Barajas, Perón's widow exclaims "no one dies five minutes before God's plan." The attempted murder of the woman was a political scandal and caused the repudiation of the then president, Raúl Alfonsín.
Spanish citizenship
At the beginning of the XXI century, specifically in the year 2000, María Estela Martínez Cartas de Perón managed to obtain Spanish citizenship, without losing their natural citizenship (Argentina). This situation allowed her to escape from Argentine justice when requests for her release were made so that she could be tried for possible crimes against humanity carried out during her sporadic government.
Extradition requests
In 2007, two Argentine judges (one from Mendoza and the other from Buenos Aires) requested the extradition of Martínez de Perón from Spain to be tried for his hypothetical participation in crimes against humanity committed during his government. The Spanish courts rejected both requests, considering that neither of the two cases dealt with crimes against humanity.
The case in Mendoza was processed before the federal judge of San Rafael Héctor Acosta, who was investigating the arrest and subsequent disappearance of Héctor Aldo Fagetti Gallego, in the last two months of the presidency of Martínez de Perón. Judge Acosta requested her extradition to Interpol on January 11, 2007 and the following day she was arrested at her home in Villanueva de la Cañada, Community of Madrid, Spain, being conditionally released a few hours later while the extradition was processed. The judge also ordered the arrest of other important Peronist officials of his government, such as Ítalo Luder, Antonio Cafiero and Carlos Ruckauf, who were signatories of the so-called annihilation decrees, considered as the starting point of State terrorism in Argentina that was later spread. spread and aggravated after the civic-military coup d'état of 1976.
A few days later, the then federal judge Norberto Oyarbide of Buenos Aires, added his own request to the extradition process, so that Martínez de Perón would be prosecuted in a case for crimes committed by Triple A during his presidency; among them the murders of Rodolfo Ortega Peña, Julio Troxler, Alfredo Alberto Curutchet and Silvio Frondizi. On April 28, 2008, the Spanish National Court rejected the extradition requests, arguing that the alleged crimes attributed to the former head of state in both cases were time-barred, as they were not considered crimes against humanity. Unlike the Spanish courts, the Argentine courts considered that the Triple A crimes were crimes against humanity.
On June 21, 2017, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected summoning the former president in a case for Operativo Independencia.
Appearance in 2017
On June 29, 2017, Martínez de Perón published in the Buenos Aires newspaper La Nación (in a gesture that drew media attention) a funeral notice for the death of trade unionist Gerónimo «Momo» Venegas, leader of Peronism linked to then President Mauricio Macri. The unionist's daughter stated that Martínez de Perón maintained a long-term friendship with her father.
Tribute in 2020, communication with Pope Francis and demand for vindication in 2022
In 2020, Julio Piumato and Father Pepe di Paola organized a tribute to the former president in exile in Spain; the event was held at the General Confederation of Labor of the Argentine Republic, where a plaque was placed with the name of Perón's widow, who participated in the ceremony in audio form. That same year, a biography was published Authorized by María Estela herself, written by Diego Mazzieri and entitled María Estela Martínez, forever from Perón.
In the framework of his 90th birthday, Pope Francis gave him a rosary, maintaining sporadic telephone communications.
In 2022, trade unionist Julio Piumato demanded that the courts dismiss Isabel Perón on the crimes of Triple A.
Books
- The Truths of Justice (1983)
In popular culture
Biographies
- Isabel Perón: La Argentina in the years of María Estela Martínez de Perón
- The First President
- Isabel Perón, a woman in the storm
- Isabel Martinez forever from Perón
Filmography
- A house without curtains (documentary)
- Arde Madrid (TV series, played by Fabiana García Lago)
Historical assessment
The presidency of Martínez de Perón is considered one of the most controversial in Argentine history, mainly with regard to constitutional governments and in general receiving negative assessments from politicians, media and historians.
The coup group that overthrew her installed in the population the idea that the fall of Martínez de Perón was "inevitable". This did not stop after the coup and the dictatorship that succeeded Martínez de Perón resorted several times to remembering the "subversive scourge", the "demagogy", the "corruption", the "chaos", the "vacuum of power", the "lack of institutional solutions" and the "irresponsibility in the management of the economy", among others, as a series of justifying factors of the military coup and systematic state terrorism. Apart from the defenders or supporters of the dictatorship, his critics also attribute a prominent role to him in the political repression that accompanied the bleeding of the constitutional government and that to a great extent legitimized the tactics of the subsequent dictatorship through the annihilation decrees. During the restoration of democracy, the controversy around his role during the previous constitutional experience is widely taken into account as a preponderant factor in the internal and external problems that led the Justicialista Party to lose the 1983 presidential elections.
Within Peronism itself, the controversy surrounding the presidency of Martínez de Perón is much more pronounced. predominantly orthodox of Peronism respected her for the fact that she was Perón's widow. Criticism of her came mostly from the leftist sector of Justicialismo, which was one of the main targets of the political repression of Triple A and other groups during her presidency. Currently, none of the main sectors of Justicialismo claims or actually values his figure, which has led to opinions being issued considering Martínez de Perón as a "taboo" for said political movement. Unlike other constitutional presidents, Martínez de Perón does not have a decorative bust in the Casa Rosada, a fact that led to protests and petitions by minority Peronist groups for it to be installed during the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. In 2020, an Argentine antique dealer recovered and delivered to the Argentine government the bust of former president Martínez de Perón, sculpted in 2008 at the request of then President Néstor Kirchner, who had disappeared.
Regarding historical or public opinions about his presidency, numerous sources state that, although no public opinion polls were conducted during his tenure and no national elections took place to prove this, the military coup received relative initial popular support due to allegedly high public discontent with constitutional rule. Some critics consider that Martínez de Perón lacked any power during his presidency, being generally portrayed as a "weak" or "inoperative" figure, and that his government was the target of the influence and manipulation of political sectors of various kinds, which would explain the violence and the rarefied political climate during the period, as well as the economic disaster. The Spanish newspaper El País referred to her as a "political illiterate" in a 1983 article. The argument of her supposed inability has been questioned by other sectors, who defend that it be treated It was tied to a person responsible for the repression, although in general the sources and opinions agree that Martínez de Perón did not have the political skill required to exercise the executive leadership of a strongly presidential country like Argentina, an incapacity that was aggravated by the power vacuum left by Perón's death and the regional and international context in which he had to govern. An opinion poll conducted in Argentina in early 2007 determined that around 60% of those surveyed supported his possible extradition and prosecution for crimes against humanity, and almost three-quarters considered her knowingly responsible for the crimes committed by Triple A.
Fonts
- Guido Di Tella; Perón-PerónEd. South American, Bs. As, 1983.
- Yofre, John the Baptist (2011). 1982: the secret documents of the Falkland/Malvinas war and the collapse of the process (2nd edition). Buenos Aires: South American. ISBN 978-950-07-3666-4.