Carlos Menem
Carlos Saúl Menem (born
July 2,
1930) was
President of Argentina from
July 8,
1989 to
December 10,
1999 for the
Justicialist Party (
Peronist).
He was born into the Muslim family of
Saúl Menem and
Mohibe Akil,
Syrian immigrants in the small town of Anillaco, in the
Argentine province of
La Rioja. He was trained as a lawyer at the University of
Córdoba and became a supporter of
Juan Perón. Menem campaigned for political prisoners and was arrested in 1957 for supporting violent action against the dictatorship of
Pedro Eugenio Aramburu.
Notwithstanding his
Catholicism, his ties with his parents' homeland remained strong. In 1964, he travelled to Syria where he met Zulema Fátima Yoma, another Syrian-Argentinean, whom he married in 1966. He was also a president of the Syrian-Lebanese Association of La Rioja.
Menem divorced Zulema Yoma in 1991. Their daughter Zulema María Eva Menem fulfilled the role of
First Lady at formal occasions for the remainder of her father's presidency. In 1995 son Carlos Saúl Facundo Menem Yoma died in a helicopter crash. Even though it was declared an accident, conspiracy theories abound calling the accident an assassination. In May 2001, Menem married
Chilean television host and model
Cecilia Bolocco (
Miss Universe 1987), who is 35 years younger. The couple had a child, Maximo Menem.
He was elected governor of La Rioja in 1973, a prominent post that left him exposed after the overthrow of President
Isabel Martínez de Perón in March 1976. He was imprisoned by the
junta in Tandil, Buenos Aires, until 1981. In October 1983, with the collapse of military rule, Menem was elected once again as governor of La Rioja.
President
Campaigning as a maverick within his own party, he won the primary elections and was elected president in 1989, succeeding
Raúl Alfonsín. His campaign was centered on vague promises of
productive revolution and
salariazo (jargon for big salary increases), aimed at the
working class, the traditional constituents of the
Peronist Party.
He assumed in the midst of a major economic crisis which included
hyperinflation and
recession. After a series of failed attempts, finance minister
Domingo Cavallo introduced a series of reforms and
pegged the value of the
Argentine peso to the
U.S. dollar.
Privatization of utilities (including oil companies, the post office, telephone, gas, electricity and water utilities) and a massive influx of
foreign direct investment funds helped to tame
inflation (from 5,000% a year in the late 1980s to virtually zero in the early 1990s) and to improve the economy, but at the cost of considerable
unemployment. In 1991 he helped to launch the
Mercosur customs union. Menem's successful turnaround of the economy made the country one of the top performers in Latin America. On November 14, 1991 he addressed a
Joint session of the U.S. Congress, being one of only three Argentinean presidents who had that distinction (together with
Raúl Alfonsín and
Arturo Frondizi). From 1990 to 1994 the GDP increased a record 35% (http://www.indec.mecon.ar/) which helped him getting reelected to the presidency by a large majority.
However, the early success of the dollar peg (when the dollar was falling) was followed by increasing economic difficulties when the dollar began to rise from 1995 onwards in international markets. High external debt also caused increasing problems as financial crises affecting other countries (
Tequila Crisis in Mexico, Asia Crisis, Russia default in 1998) led to higher interest rates for Argentina as well. At the end of his term, Argentina's country risk premium was a low 6.10 percentage points above yield on comparable U.S. Treasuries.
Some years after he finished his mandate the combination of convertibility and high fiscal deficits proved unsustainable, despite massive loan support from the
International Monetary Fund, and had to be abandoned in 2002, with
disastrous effects on the
Argentine economy.
Menem's rule became tainted with accusations of corruption. His handling of the investigations of the 1992
Israeli Embassy bombing and the 1994
bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center was often criticised as being dishonest and superficial. He is suspected of diverting the investigation from the
Iranian clue, which would lead to the responsibility of that country in the attack.
One of the most criticized measures of his administration was the
pardon he granted to
Jorge Rafael Videla,
Emilio Massera,
Leopoldo Galtieri and other leaders of the
Proceso de Reorganización Nacional (the 1976–1983 dictatorship), and some terrorist leaders as well, on the grounds of "national reconciliation". His
neoliberal policies were also criticized from the left side of Argentinean political spectrum, and explains the new
Piquetero movement, born in
Neuquen Province. However, it is to be noted that some neoliberals (specially those of the
Austrian School), strongly disagree with full convertibility to the dollar and other interventionist measures of the Menem administration, which therefore, cannot be properly called 'liberal'. This also includes corruption, growth of the public sector's salaries, semi-privatizations (former state-runned companies were 'privatized' but continued being subsidized by the state) and an enormous increase in Argentina's public debt.
Menem's government re-established relations with the
United Kingdom, broken during the
Falklands/Malvinas War.
In 1994, after a political agreement (the
Olivos Pact) with the
Radical Civic Union party leader, former president Alfonsín, Menem succeeded in having the
Constitution modified to allow presidential re-election, so that he could run for office once again in 1995.
Continuing political career
His attempt to run for a third term in 1999 was unsuccessful, as it was ruled to be unconstitutional.
In the
April 27,
2003 presidential election first round, Menem won the greatest number of votes (25%), but failed to get the votes necessary to win an overall majority. A second-round run-off vote between Menem and second-place finisher
Néstor Kirchner was scheduled for May 18, 2003. Being certain that he was about to face a resounding electoral defeat, Menem decided to withdraw his candidacy, thus automatically making Kirchner the new president.
In June 2004 Menem announced that he had founded a new faction within the Justicialist Party, called People's Peronism, and stated his ambition to run in the
2007 election.
In 2005, the press reported that he was trying to make an alliance with his ex-Minister of Economy
Domingo Cavallo to fight in the parliamentary elections. The alliance was apparently frustrated; Menem said that there had been only preliminary conversations. In
the 23 October elections, Menem won the minority seat in the Senate representing his province of birth. This was viewed as a catastrophic defeat, signaling the end of his political dominance in La Rioja, since the two senators for the majority were won by President Kirchner's faction, locally led by former Menemist governor
Ángel Maza. It was the first time in 30 years that Menem lost an election.
Corruption charges
On
June 7,
2001, Menem was arrested over an arms export scandal relating to exports to Ecuador and Croatia in 1991 and 1996, and remained under house arrest until November. He appeared before a judge in late August 2002 and denied all charges. It was hinted that Menem held more than
USD $10 million in
Swiss bank accounts. However, the Swiss banks and authorities denied these allegations.
Menem and his second wife Bolocco, who had had a child since their marriage in 2001, moved to Chile. Argentine justice repeatedly requested Menem's extradition to face embezzlement charges, but this was rejected by the Chilean Supreme Court, as under Chilean law people cannot be extradited for questioning.
On December 22, 2004, he returned to Argentina after his arrest warrants were cancelled. He still faces charges of embezzlement and failing to declare illegal funds outside of Argentina, but despite this he has stated his ambition to run in the 2007 election.
*
Biography from his site*
Launch of new faction (from the BBC)*
Chile declines extradition request (from the BBC)*
Menem arrives on Argentine soil (from the BBC)
