Brazil & Southern Cone - May 2006 (ISSN 1741-4431)

President Néstor Kirchner marked his third year in charge, and Independence Day, with a massive rally in the Plaza de Mayo outside the presidential palace on 25 May. Elections are due in 2007 and Kirchner is expected to use the large 200,000 strong crowd as vindication of his right to seek a second term.

Kirchner, who took office having won just 22% of the vote after Carlos Menem pulled out of the second round, would win 59% of the vote if elections were held now, according to a poll by the consulting firm Analogí­as. The poll also showed that 81% of Argentines think that Kirchner should stand for a second term while 74% feel that the country is better off since he came to power. Kirchner is playing down his intention to stand for re-election saying that his wife, Senator Cristina Fernández "could be president as she has all the right credentials".

Kirchner addressed the crowd, thousands of which were bussed in from the provinces or provided with free train and underground rides across the city for the day, from a huge stage in front of the presidential palace in a clear echo of Juan Perón's mass addresses. He listed a detailed catalogue of the achievements of his administration in the economic and social fields, and singled out big businesses and the press for his customary diatribes. 

A banner proclaiming "La Patria somos todos" was draped around the box. This revealed the objective of the rally. Kirchner hopes to form an electoral platform buttressed not just by the Partido Justicialista but also sectors of the main opposition Unión Cí­vica Radical and smaller centre-left parties, social organisations and trade unions. He will have been disappointed by the decision by the UCR provincial governors not to make the trip even though many of them are ostensibly allies of the president. 

The opposition was reluctant to be a part of the celebrations and accused Kirchner of hijacking Independence Day for his own political uses. Various opposition politicians accuse Kirchner of increasing authoritarianism, riding roughshod over the country's institutions and passing more decrees than any previous president. Mauricio Macri, the leader of the centre-right Partido para una República con Oportunidades (PRO), derisively dismissed the rally as serving to show "who is the most servile to the president or who manages to bring most people to the plaza". The leader of the centre-left Alternativa por una República de Iguales (ARI), Elisa Carrió, said that Kirchner had committed an "enormous error" by holding the rally as he was "appropriating a date which belongs to all Argentines".

Is there a viable opposition?

The divided nature of the opposition is, however, something that is occupying the minds of leading representatives of opposition parties, some of whom are contemplating an alliance behind one man: Roberto Lavagna. Kirchner's former economy minister, who was edged out in October 2005 after disagreeing with the president one too many times, is the most popular politician in Argentina after Kirchner and his wife according to polls. Raúl Alfonsí­n, a former president and strongman of the UCR, said that Lavagna could be "the Ricardo Lagos of Argentina" by bringing together the progressive forces of Argentine politics. By this he meant an alliance between the UCR, the Partido Socialista of Hermes Binner, who scored a resounding victory over Kirchner's candidate in legislative elections in the third-most important province of Santa Fe in October 2005, and eventually Carrió. Lavagna is saying nothing.