MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

From Boca Juniors to Casa Rosada?

Mauricio Macri, president of Argentina's most popular football team Boca Juniors, and head of a network of companies, is seriously considering running for the Argentine presidency next March 2003.

Apparently when Carlos Reutemann, the popular governor of the province of Santa Fe and former F 1 pilot finally desisted from the presidential race, this prompted Mr. Macri to jump from the business and sport community to high voltage politics.

However Mr. Macri still has to decide whether to compete in the Peronist party primary next November, where he will have to challenge the powerful and resourceful former president Carlos Menem, or run as an independent trying to attract centre right voters.

"Under no circumstances will we come to an agreement with Menem. Macri will not be a candidate for Menem or for president Duhalde", were quick to point out his political aides.

But it's well known that Menem and Macri are close friends and the former president encouraged the sports businessman to become involved in politics.

The Argentine political scenario was rocked early this month when president Duhalde announced the anticipation of elections by six months after his ruling coalition collapsed divided over economic and financial policies.

In the utterly devalued, and rejected, political establishment Mr. Reutemann was sought as the most appropriate candidate for the early presidential election given his standing as an honest and relatively independent manager of the rich province of Santa Fé.

But after long meditation, the former F 1 pilot, said it was not the time, stressing he didn't want to be squashed by the still unresolved feud between Mr. Menem and Mr. Duhalde the two outstanding leaders of the Peronist party.

Before making his decision, Mr. Reutemann held long talks with president Duhalde, who wanted to show his as "his" candidate, met an emissary from the Menem family and was summoned to the US Embassy.

With Mr. Reutemann out of the field, Mr. Macri seems willing to jump into the race.

Declared candidates

So far Mr. Menem, Mr. Rodríguez Sáa a former governor who was interim president during ten days last December, and Governors Juan Carlos Romero and Néstor Kirchner from Salta and Santa Cruz, have anticipated they will be participating in the Peronist primary next November to nominate the party's candidate.

Whoever is named is almost certain to become Argentina's next elected president. No other political movement in Argentina comes close to the Peronist organization.

In the other extreme stands Elisa Carrió an independent candidate that has consistently criticized corruption in the political establishment and the economic policies sponsored by the International Monetary Fund. In the current state of affairs with a furious and disenchanted electorate, she leads comfortably in the opinion polls.

Ms. Carrió however is insisting that the next election should include all elected posts, not only the Executive, but the whole of the Argentine Congress two Houses, governorships and provincial legislatives.

She's holding talks looking forward to an electoral alliance with the Mayor of the city of Buenos Aires Mr. Aníbal Ibarra and the Santa Cruz governor Néstor Kirchner, one of the few provinces with sufficient resources to pay salaries, pensions and keep public utilities working.

The three are magnets for left wing voters and those critical of the current Argentine situation. But they lack the infrastructure and national network the Peronists, and particularly Mr. Menem have. Besides Ms. Carrió so far has proved to be a media success which still has to be tested in votes; Mr. Ibarra hasn't been too fortunate managing the rich city of Buenos Aires and Mr. Kirchner, whose wife is also a national Senator, rules one of the least populated Argentine provinces. Santa Cruz lives mainly of Patagonian oil and gas royalties, and one of Mr. Kirchner great achievements, --and current autonomy--, was to deposit all the province's funds overseas, far from the Argentine financial chaos.

Menem on the trail

Meantime Mr. Menem who never denied his presidential ambitions keeps knitting his strategy and working for his objective in spite of figuring in the lower half of the opinion polls.

Next to his Chilean wife and former television artist, Cecilia Bolocco, simulating the mythical Evita Perón, Mr. Menem returned from a successful tour of the United States where he addressed world conservative leaders and was hosted by George Bush Senior, with whom he has a close relation.

This last weekend he participated in two public political acts in president Duhalde's turf in the province of Buenos Aires, one is support of a former police officer with political ambitions famous for his tough law and order stance, and later gave the closing speech in a forum of 6,000 liberal economists, bankers and businessmen, some of which would be invited in a future Menem administration.

To overcome the current financial mess in Argentina, Mr. Menem preaches changing the local currency for the US dollar and acting in consonance with United States, -- the undisputed world leader--, besides a return to open market policies that attract foreign investors and "will help us get Argentina on its feet again".

Buenos Aires journalists claim that Mr. Menem's cronies have been acquiring the upper hand in several media, both electronic and written, that in the past have been particularly critical of the former president.

Mr. Menem is also known to have very close links not only with the business community but with the Argentine Armed Forces and the Catholic Church.

In a country in the verge of dissolution, a candidate with experience, in spite of his questionable record from some quarters, the message of a tough response to rampant street delinquency, and promises of financial stability tied to the US dollar, will not be unattractive to the Argentine electorate.

The months ahead will certainly help to ease that hate-love, rejection-admiration, relation the average Argentine has towards the United States.