MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Encouraging prospects in Argentina
Atomization and an end to bipartisanism?

Encouraging prospects in Argentina

With just over a month for the April presidential election, Argentina's caretaker president Eduardo Duhalde announced encouraging recovery prospects for the rest of the year.

Mr. Duhalde anticipated inflation in Argentina in 2003 would be below 10%, confirming that the country managed to avoid hyperinflation "and now we're even below the Economy Ministry estimates agreed with the International Monetary Fund, that is 22%".

President Duhalde also pointed out the stability in the currency market where the US dollar fluctuation has quietened and now stands just above 3 pesos to the greenback, "this means people are trusting our economic policies; they are not taking refuge in the dollar, the economy has begun to move forward, and soon credit will be again available for companies and commerce".

Last week Argentina's Central Bank president Alfonso Prat-Gray during a Congressional hearing anticipated that if the tendency of the first two months of 2003 remains unchanged, "annual retail inflation should be around 8%".

Mr. Duhalde also emphasized his administration's decision to end the convertibility system in Argentina that had one peso pegged to one US dollar. "This created a bubble of illusion and by 1996 had forced local industry to shut down. It was more profitable to import and speculate than to produce locally", underlined Mr. Duhalde.

Finally Mr. Duhalde pointed out his administration's decision to allow the gradual investment of bonds that were given in exchange for frozen bank deposits in the purchase of cars and homes.

"This will help reactivate automobile production and the construction industry without generating inflation", said president Duhalde.

Atomization and an end to bipartisanism?

The coming April 27 general elections in Argentina could signal the end of polarization and the two leading parties system, according to a report from a think tank commanded by a renowned Argentine political scientist and historian Rosendo Fraga. Electoral polarization and bipartisanism has been present in almost the fifteen elections held in Argentina since voting became compulsory in 1916.

The current division in the ruling Justicialista Party with three presidential tickets and the opposition Radical Party almost non existent indicate that the average polarization of 81,5% in the 15 general elections of Argentina since 1916 could be reaching an end.

As extreme polarization cases Mr. Fraga's work recalls 1946 when General Juan Domingo Peron was first voted in: he won with 52,4% and the opposition running together in the Democratic Union (Conservatives, Socialists and Radicales) managed 42,5%, with the two candidates absorbing 94,9% of the electorate.

Similarly, six years later, Mr. Perón was re-elected with 62,4% of the vote and the Radical candidate managed 31,8%, together concentrating 94,3% of all the electorate.

In 1983, when democracy returned, Mr. Raúl ALfonsín was voted president with 51,7% and the opposition Peronist candidate managed 40,1%. However over 90% of the electorate was polarized between Mr. Alfonsín and Mr. Italo Luder.

However in 1963, when Mr. Arturo Illia became president with 25% of the vote, but with Mr. Peron and his party banned, the elected president and his runner up only managed 41,5% of the total electorate.

Again in 1973 when Mr. Héctor Cámpora became president with 50,1% of the vote, and 30 points ahead of his runner up, polarization reached 70%.

But this time with no presidential hopeful commanding 20%, according to opinion polls, and the ruling Justicialist Party split between Mr. Carlos Menem, Mr. Adolfo Rodríguez Sáa and Mr. Néstor Kirchner, "polarization of the electorate looks most uncertain", reads the report.

"Polarization in the first round of ballotage, and with political parties in crisis, will be extremely low, maybe just above the 1963 experience and below 1973", argues Mr. Fraga in his report.