Carlos Menem: Encyclopedia - Carlos Menem

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).

Carlos Menem - Background

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 conversion to 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, many still believe it was an assassination. In May 2001, Menem married Chilean model Cecilia Bolocco (Miss Universe 1987), who is 35 years younger.

Carlos Menem - Political career

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.

Carlos Menem - 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 LatinAmerica. 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. Some years after he finished his mandate, the dollar peg eventually 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 deviating 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 heavily contested, and explains the new Piquetero movement, born in Neuquen Province.

Menem's government re-established relations with the United Kingdom, broken during the Falklands/Malvinas War, despite some previous comments about a bloody reconquest.

In 1994, after a political agreement (the Olivos Pact) with the Radical Civic Union party leader, former president Alfonsín, Menem suceeded in having the Constitution modified to allow presidential re-election, so that he could run for office once again in 1995.

Carlos Menem - 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.

Carlos Menem - 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.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Carlos Menem", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki