MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine Leader Tries to Revive Campaign

Former President Carlos Menem struggled Wednesday to reinvigorate his campaign for a third term, and a new poll showed him lagging far behind his rival in Argentina's May 18 presidential runoff.

Menem, who governed from 1989 to 1999, stepped up a media blitz aimed at capturing independent voters and dismissed opinion surveys indicating a widening gap between him and provincial governor Nestor Kirchner.

"I've never lost a campaign, and I don't think I will lose this time," Menem said during an interview on a popular daytime talk show. "We're working hard to pick up votes."

Menem and Kirchner face each other in a vote to choose a successor to President Eduardo Duhalde, who took office last January as the fifth president in two weeks after deadly street protests.

Menem, 72, was the largest vote-getter among 19 candidates in the first round of voting April 27, but failed to gain a large enough majority to avoid a runoff election.

Menem gained 24.2 percent of the vote compared to 22 percent for Kirchner, a Peronist party leader from the southern Patagonian region.

But analysts say Kirchner is gaining much of the support that had originally gone to other candidates in the crowded field, while riding a wave of popular anger over Menem's 10-year rule.

A poll by the Equis pollsters released Wednesday gave Kirchner 58.5 percent support compared with 21.7 percent for Menem. The survey of 3,110 people in 12 cities had a margin of error of 1.7 percent. The poll showed more than 50 percent of potential voters were driven by casting anti-Menem votes, evidence of Menem's biggest challenge: combating the feeling among many Argentines that his previous administrations were the root cause of the country's worst economic crisis in history.

During the 1990s, Menem won international acclaim for using U.S.-backed free-market reforms to turn Argentina into one of the fastest growing economies.

But many critics now say the growth only benefited the country's wealthy and charge that heavy borrowing during the Menem years pushed the country to its 2001 economic implosion.

A swirl of corruption cases, including an arms trafficking scandal that led Menem to spend six months under house arrest two years ago, have further tarnished his legacy.

With poll ratings sagging, the Menem campaign has shown signs of tension. Media reports suggested conflicts among his top campaign advisers forced a reshuffling of officials last week. Meanwhile, Kirchner was moving to take his campaign beyond Argentina's borders.

Later Wednesday, Kirchner traveled to neighboring Brazil to meet with Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva. The candidate was then to fly on to Santiago, Chile, on Thursday for a meeting with Chilean President Ricardo Lagos.

But Menem insisted he will be voted back into office.

"I am sure I'm going to win," he said in the television interview. "If we don't, Argentina has no hopes of coming out of this crisis."

"If you want to return to the good times, then you know who to vote for," he said.