MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Alvarez admits he will “consider” a cabinet post

Former Argentine vice-president admitted his interest in a cabinet post in the president Kirchner administration, following the mid term October election results.

"If something that I consider interesting arises, not based on rumours, important, that I think will allow me to make a contribution, I will consider it", said Mr. Alvarez over the weekend.

As to the reports about his possibility of becoming foreign minister he said they "are just media speculation, a kind of rumour that is spreading and almost becoming news, almost becoming the truth, but it is not so".

He added that Foreign Secretary Rafael Bielsa offered him "some embassies" but that he had turned down these offers because he is interested in continuing with the academic activities he has been carrying out.

Mr. Bielsa has said that if elected to the Lower House he will quit as foreign minister, adding that he would like Alvarez to replace him as a minister. Bielsa had also said that Economy Minister Roberto Lavagna would make an excellent foreign minister.

Mr. Alvarez admitted to the possibility that what he described as rumours about his becoming foreign minister could originate "in an important source close to power."

Alvarez in the mid-nineties quit the Peronist party over disagreement with the neoconservative policies of Peronist president Carlos Menem (1989-1999), and founded his own Great Front that eventually formed the centre-left Frepaso coalition.

Frepaso joined forces with the also centre-left Radical party to form the Alliance which in 1999 took Fernando de la Rúa to office with Alvarez as the running-mate. Alvarez quit the vice-presidency in October 2000 over disagreement with an investigation into alleged bribes in the Senate. Many observers consider this decision to have sparked the crisis that made the Alliance crumble mid-way through its four-year term in December 2001 amid a deep economic and political crisis.

Since quitting as vice-president, the once highly popular Alvarez has kept a low profile and academic activities.

However Mr. Alvarez praised the Kirchner administration and Mrs. Kirchner's candidacy to the Senate in representation of the province of Buenos Aires.

Mr. Kirchner "is discussing with the (former president) Duhalde structure, the new ways of making politics which go beyond changing votes for favours", he wrote in a syndicated newspaper column.

"It's a process in which President Kirchner is reformulating the political parties system in Argentina", underlined Mr. Alvarez.