Menem governed Argentina during 10 years in the decade of 1990 like a Peronist leader of liberal ideology and strident style. His privatizing and liberal ideology was carried out by the pampered child of the International Monetary Fund, Wall Street investors, U.S. Republicans and the Davos business forum.
The charismatic Carlos Menem, who died this Sunday in Buenos Aires at the age of 90, ruled Argentina for 10 years in the 1990s as a Peronist leader of liberal ideology and strident style, in contrast to the low profile of his last years as a senator. .
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On June 13, 2020, in the midst of coronavirus quarantine, he was hospitalized in Buenos Aires for a complicated pneumonia with a cardiac history. From then on, his internationals became more and more frequent, due to various diseases. “He had a huge charisma,” President Fernández, also a Peronist, said in an interview with the C5N channel.
Born on July 2, 1930 into a family of Syrian immigrants, Menem prides himself on never losing an election. “For Argentina it meant something very strong,” said political scientist Carlos Fara. “Not only because he had an exceptional leadership that led him to be re-elected by 50% of the vote, but because he was the last leader of a fully unified Peronism,” he pointed out. Peronism, a political movement founded by Juan Domingo Perón in the 1940s, has grouped throughout its history all ideological currents from the radical left to the far right.
President between 1989 and 1999, ‘El Turc’ loved luxury, women, sports, Ferrari car driving, watches and sparkling wine. His privatizing and liberal ideology was carried out by the pampered child of the International Monetary Fund, Wall Street investors, U.S. Republicans and the Davos business forum. With his iconic sideburns and high profile, Menem faced the hyperinflation and social outburst that had led Raúl Alfonsín (1983-1989) to advance the elections and the transfer of command by several months.
Menem ran for president again in 2003 and won the first round with 24% of the vote, compared to 22% of Peronist Néstor Kirchner. Nevertheless it declined to participate in the voting because it feared an avalanche of votes for his rival, finally consecrated.
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A law graduate, Menem was governor of his home province, La Rioja, on two occasions, the first in 1973, although he was stripped of his post at the time of the 1976 coup and was detained for two years. “We must always recognize his courage and support for democracy. When the dictatorship came, he imprisoned him for years,” said President Fernández.
political scars
Menem pushed for constitutional reform in 1994, which introduced immediate presidential re-election, as well as removing the requirement to profess the Catholic religion to those who wield state leadership. He also pardoned those most responsible for the last dictatorship (1976-1983) who had been prosecuted and members of guerrilla organizations.
Controversial was thus his management of the economy, with a large commercial opening and an intense process of privatization of state-owned enterprises: to defeat inflation, which he achieved, in 1991 he implemented the “one to one” that went maintain for more than a decade the parity between the peso and the dollar. A model that worked during his first term and turned the 90s into a time of euphoria, but in the second – after his re-election in 1995 – he began to show imbalances and ended up exploiting and laying the foundations, according to some analysts, of the crisis of the ‘corralito’ untied in 2001, during the term of the conservative Fernando de la Rúa.
He was remanded in custody in 2001 for a trial by arms smuggling in Croatia and Ecuador, but was released weeks later by decision of the Supreme Court of Justice and was later acquitted of excess term in a case that took 25 years. The illegal sale of arms in Ecuador took place despite the fact that Argentina was the guarantor of peace in the 1995 confrontation between Lima and Quito. “It ended up being very controversial because of corruption, the social cost of its reforms and the political consequences,” Fara said.
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The fueros avoided the jail to him in the judgments against him, between these one by concealment of the attack against the Jewish mutual AMIA in 1994, that caused 85 deaths. In 2019 he received a new three-year sentence for embezzlement, without serving a sentence for his immunity as a senator.
He was the only Latin American president to join the Western alliance to take part in the Gulf War (1990-91), with the dispatch of two ships. “We have carnal relations with the United States,” he justified then.
Doing it and divorcing
In the 1990s, the time of its heyday, Menem was the architect of a way of socializing christened ‘pizza with champagne’, with which he identified with the “new rich”. The presidential residence opened to show business and Menem received Brazilian Xuxa, German model Claudia Schiffer, British Rolling Stones, Mexican Luis Miguel and Americans Michael Jackson and Madonna, among others.
But the same residence was closed for his own wife, Zulema Yoma, whom he met in 1990. Years later, he married former Miss Chilean Universe Cecilia Bolocco, with whom he had his son Maximus. . With Yoma he had Zulemita and Carlos, the latter dead in a helicopter crash never clarified. He was also the father of Carlos Nair Menem Meza. “A lot of people wanted my dad very much. He was a great man. He might or may not agree with his policies but he was a great person, a great friend,” Zulemita said at the clinic doors.
His farewell
The burning chapel with the remains of former Argentine President Carlos Menem (1989-1999) was installed in the Senate of the Nation, after the coffin will reach Congress, where it was received by Vice President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and his family. “He is going to rest in the Islamic cemetery with my brother, even though he professed the Catholic religion, to be with my brother,” his daughter Zulemita Menem said.
The former president’s farewell will be held open to the public in the Blue Room of the Nation’s Senate and will run until tomorrow Monday, according to official sources. His body will be buried in the Islamic cemetery in the province of Buenos Aires, where the remains of the politician’s eldest son, Carlos Menem Jr., lie, although Menem professed the Catholic religion, his daughter Zulemita confirmed today in the door of the sanatorium where the former president died.
When the funeral procession entered Congress he was greeted with applause and shouts of joy by the people who despite the rain gathered at the gates of Congress to say goodbye to the former president. The current head of state, Alberto Fernández, also a Peronist, like the deceased, expressed his “deep sorrow” and decreed three days of national mourning. Shortly after the burning chapel was installed, President Fernández attended the vigil accompanied by the first lady, Fabiola Yáñez.