MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Menem supporting Cavallo's bid for Congress

Former Argentine Economy Minister Domingo Cavallo confirmed on Saturday that former President Carlos Menem will support his run for Congress, though he denied they were forging an electoral alliance with a view to the October elections.

The two leading figures in Argentine politics of the early 1990s met at a Buenos Aires hotel on Wednesday, triggering rumors they were creating a common election front.

Cavallo, economy minister during part of Menem's 1989-1999 administration, told Del Plata radio the ex-president's support is "informal," as his former boss sees his running as something "positive." The relationship between the two men deteriorated when Cavallo became economy minister again under Fernando de la Rua's 1999-2001 administration.

Cavallo called his chances of being elected "very limited" and insisted his principal motivation in running is to have the opportunity to "express his ideas." The former minister returned to Argentina last month and confirmed he would run for Congress representing Buenos Aires under the banner of Action for the Republic, the party he founded in 1997.

Cavallo was the ideologue behind the peso's artificial parity with the dollar, in force in Argentina for nearly 11 years, and in late 2001 implemented unpopular measures restricting withdrawals from bank accounts, policies that contributed to De la Rua's untimely departure from office.

Menem, for his part, is running for senator representing La Rioja province in northwest Argentina in elections in which half the House of Representative's 257 seats, as well as one third of the Senate's 72, are up for grabs.