MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Velvet and fist battle for the province of Buenos Aires

The full fledged political dispute for the province of Buenos Aires was confirmed this weekend when Argentine president Nestor Kirchner and former caretaker president Eduardo Duhalde openly supported their hand picked candidates for the Senate which happen to be their respective wive

The situation means a virtual rift in the leadership of Argentina's main all encompassing force, the Peronist Party which has dominated the country for the last six decades. On the one side the President and a bulging treasury, on the other the kingmaker and master of the richest region of the country, Buenos Aires province with 36% of the national electorate.

First Lady Senator Cristina Fernández launched her campaign last Thursday surrounded by most provincial governors, and Mrs. Chiche Duhalde, (a member of the Lower House) on Saturday in an open rally with her husband standing in first line and grass root support from their powerful organization in the province of Buenos Aires which the couple has dominated for over twenty years.

Contrary to Mrs. Kirchner's aggressive style and comments triggered since then from the president's stalwarts including expressions such as "extortion", "mafia", comparing "Duhalde to the Godfather and a destabilizing figure", Mrs. Duhalde in a firm but non derogatory manner said that "intolerance is destabilizing" and suggested that "the past be left to historians" and invited the president to act without "resentment or rancour", recalling that he had specifically ordered her not to run, "but here I am".

On Saturday President Kirchner travelled to Tucuman to celebrate the country's Independence Day and enumerated all of his administration's successes in the "tireless effort" to lift Argentina from the inferno, which "I hope will enable me to say that we've reached the purgatory by the end of my mandate (2007)", when he will attempting his re-election.

Furthermore the president has described the coming October election as a referendum on his administration's performance and his "new country project" which supposedly is completely opposite to the traditional way of making politics in Argentina.

Mr. Kirchner was first elected president in May 2003, promoted and sponsored by Mr. Duhalde at the time caretaker president. Mr. Duhalde was nominated by Congress following the melting of the Argentine economy in 2001/02 and a chaotic situation of virtual civil disobedience which fiercely rejected the political system.

To overcome the situation Mr. Duhalde hand picked a relatively unknown Patagonia governor from the second least populated province of the country that happened to have a Senator wife, strong willed, charming and ambitious; a touch of class for the Argentine electorate that since the time of Peron and Evita tend to adore couples involved in politics.

Mr. Kirchner and First Lady Cristina did a good job in recovering credibility for the political system and began toying with the idea of their own project, a centre left grouping which would represent a horizontal cut of the Argentine political spectrum and attract non partisans.

With the economy expanding rapidly and blaming all the country's woes to foreign investors and corrupt officials from previous administrations with the blessing of multilateral credit organizations such as the IMF, the Kirchner couple had found a good launching pad.

Meantime the other politically involved couple, the Duhalde kept faithful to populist Peronist policy, knowing that any political project in Argentina needs the support or alliance of the province of Buenos Aires.

The dispute has therefore turned into a ladies duel.

Opinion polls indicate Cristina Fernandez is well ahead but since the election has been described as a referendum, every vote Chiche Duhalde can distract will make the Kirchner's couple "new country" project ever more difficult and eroding for the 2007 re-election bid.

Bur according to Argentine political analyst Joaquin Morales Sola, several of the governors who were pictured next to Cristina Kirchner during her candidacy launching and happened to be old pals of Mr. Duhalde contacted him and apologized arguing: "the man has the cheque book!!".

So in centralized Argentina it's a velvet and fist fight.