The elections follow a pattern seen elsewhere in South America, such as the electoral victories of Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva in Brazil and Lucio Gutiérrez in Ecuador. Both of them were voted into office on the basis of criticizing their predecessors’ austerity measures and speaking out for those most affected by the depression conditions.

In the crowded April 27 race, none of the contenders won more than 25 percent of the vote, reflecting the widespread anger at established politicians for the social catastrophe, as well as the absence of a political alternative.

Outgoing president Eduardo Duhalde was appointed by Congress in January 2002 after an economic meltdown and social explosion in Argentina forced Fernando de la Rúa to resign. In contrast to the unpopular de la Rúa, Duhalde was able to use his Peronist credentials as a “man of the people” to carry through a sharp devaluation of the peso and other brutal economic measures to try to restore the confidence of capitalists.

In the first round, former president Carlos Menem won 24 percent of the vote and Kirchner 22 percent. Behind them came conservative economist Ricardo Murphy; Elisa Carrió, a former Radical Party politician who identified herself as an anticorruption crusader; and Peronist Adolfo Rodríguez Saa, who had been president for one week immediately after de la Rúa’s fall in December 2001.

The United Left, an electoral coalition that includes the Communist Party, gained less than 2 percent.

The Radical Civic Union, de la Rúa’s party, which—together with the Peronists—has historically been one of the ruling bourgeois parties, received 2.3 percent, barely more than the United Left.

In the runoff, Menem, who had served two terms in 1989-99, did not stand a chance in his third bid. At a time when Argentina remains mired in its deepest economic crisis in decades, Menem and his austerity policies are widely blamed. With Kirchner receiving 78 percent support in the polls, Menem bailed out before the May 18 second round and ceded the presidency to his opponent. It became clear that with the country’s economy still in shambles, the ruling class needed someone with more “leftist” credentials than Menem in Casa Rosada—Argentina’s White House.  
 
Peronists
Menem and Kirchner belong to rival factions of the Justicialista party, as the Peronist organization is called. The trade union officialdom—the two wings of the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) and the smaller Federation of Argentine Workers (CTA)—had called for a “vote against Menem” and backed Kirchner in the second round.

The Peronist party has been the main bourgeois political force in Argentina since World War II, when Juan Domingo Perón rose to power. During that period the working class wrested substantial economic and social gains from the bosses, forging powerful unions. But the betrayals of the Argentine Communist Party, which backed the “democratic” imperialist oppressors of Argentina, London and Washington, handed the leadership of the labor movement to the bourgeois-nationalist Peronists.

Posturing as a champion of the descamisados (the shirtless), the Peronists have for six decades enjoyed the loyal collaboration of the trade union bureaucracy in subordinating the needs of working people to “national unity”—that is, the interests of the domestic capitalists—and tying the unions to the state. As the world capitalist crisis came crashing down on Argentina, working people were devastated and many of their previous gains sharply eroded.

During the 1990s the Menem regime sold off most state-owned industries. Bosses laid off tens of thousands and brutally sped up production, while the prostrate union movement fractured. The government launched an offensive against the social wage and union rights. For a decade the Menem government pegged the peso to the U.S. dollar, raising the cost of living for most working people. Despite enormous payments to the international bankers, the debt burden mushroomed.

In December 2001, the de la Rúa government, presiding over a deepening depression, defaulted on the debt, setting off a financial collapse. An eruption of working-class protests brought down the regime. In January 2002, newly appointed Duhalde unlinked the peso from the dollar, precipitating a 70 percent devaluation of the Argentine currency. Over the past year the economy has contracted by at least 12 percent. More than 40 percent of the workforce remains jobless or underemployed.

In recent months the freefall has slowed, and Argentina has seen a trade surplus that has won praise from employers, although conditions have not improved for workers and farmers. The rise in exports is due to the peso’s plunge, which has made Argentine goods cheaper abroad, while imports have remained at low levels since the buying power of most Argentines has not recovered. Foreign capitalists have been pressing the government to carry out another round of attacks on social programs as a condition for new loans. This has been the backdrop for the election campaign.  
 
Continuity with Duhalde’s course
Leading up to the elections, Kirchner, governor of the oil-rich rural province of Santa Cruz in the southern region of Patagonia, used his dark-horse status to portray himself as untainted by the corruption and policies of the Buenos Aires establishment. As Duhalde’s handpicked candidate, however, he is expected to continue his predecessor’s basic course.

Kirchner blamed Washington and Menem for promoting an “indiscriminate opening” to free-market policies that devastated jobs and living standards. He pledged to give priority to Argentine manufacturers over foreign competitors.

Giving lip service to the needs of the unemployed, he has called for a $3 billion public works program focusing on construction projects such as highways and housing. Other popular proposals call for increased funding for loans to small businesses and rural development projects.

To help finance these programs, however, he has called for investing pension funds, a move that will make many working people nervous about the future of their retirement.  
 
Demands by imperialists
Capitalist investors in the United States and other imperialist countries have warned Kirchner to put their interests first. Horst Kohler, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), stated May 13 that the next government in Buenos Aires had to protect “creditors rights” and carry out an “ample program of reforms,” meaning belt-tightening measures for working people. One onerous IMF condition for new loans to Argentina is that it run a budget surplus.

The IMF has also demanded the Argentine government allow banks, currently blocked by legislation, to foreclose on tens of thousands of late mortgages, a ruinous move for the debt-struck middle classes.

Kirchner has called for renegotiating Argentina’s record $151 billion foreign debt. Arguing that this is necessary to assure payments to international creditors, he proposes that bankers write off part of $60 billion in defaulted debt and that they agree to be paid the balance over decades.

In a move to reassure investors, Roberto Lavagna, the chief Argentine negotiator with the IMF, will stay on as minister of economy, indicating continuity of the government’s policies.

The new foreign minister, Rafael Bielsa, has emphasized an orientation toward Mercosur, the regional trade bloc of Argentina, Brazil, and other countries in the Southern Cone. In a jab at Menem, Bielsa declared, “There will be no carnal relations with the United States.” The Menem government was notorious for bragging about its “carnal relations” with Washington.

While the brazenly pro-imperialist Menem had been their clear favorite, Wall Street and London’s City have voiced cautious support for the new government.

Richard Lapper, writing in the Financial Times of London, noted that Kirchner’s “populist” campaign promises had been “as welcome as an icy blast of wind.” But his review of the new administration’s recent policy statements—including a commitment to debt payments and hints of “even deeper fiscal adjustment”—concluded that if Kirchner “moulds expectations in line with tough economic realities, those Patagonian winds might not be so cold after all.”

The new regime’s big-business policies are bound to clash with the expectations among working people. “I hope this president does what he says, and that factories reopen and production rises,” said Elvira Ocampo, quoted in the May 21 Miami Herald.

Ocampo and other workers occupied the Brukman garment factory in Buenos Aires for more than a year in face of the bosses’ threat to shut it down. They were evicted by Duhalde’s cops on April 18, on the eve of the elections, but are continuing their campaign to demand the government nationalize the plant to guarantee jobs.  
 
 
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