Appointment as
president of Argentina Fernando de la Rúa resigned as president during the December 2001 riots amid a deep economic crisis. With the vice presidency already vacant, Congress was tasked with appointing a new president. A bloc of Peronist governors from smaller provinces, known as the “Federal Front,” secured enough votes to appoint Adolfo Rodríguez Saá, governor of San Luis Province. However, his early decisions in office triggered further unrest, and he lacked support from the broader Justicialist Party. A meeting he called with provincial governors drew little attendance, and he resigned after one week in office. Rodríguez Saá later accused Eduardo Duhalde and Córdoba governor José Manuel de la Sota of plotting against him. Congress met again to select a new president. With the Federal Front weakened, governors from more populous provinces gained influence. The main candidates were Duhalde, De la Sota, and Buenos Aires governor Carlos Ruckauf. Duhalde gained support from key political figures, including Raúl Alfonsín, who directed Radical legislators to vote for him and offered members of his party for cabinet positions. Duhalde also received votes from legislators aligned with Menem. With this backing, Congress appointed Duhalde president on 2 January 2002, granting him a full term to complete De la Rúa’s mandate rather than calling early elections. Duhalde announced at his inauguration that he would repeal the
convertibility plan, considered the main cause of the economic crisis. Although Menem proposed a full
dollarization of the Argentine economy, Duhalde preferred to instead stick to the peso and order a
devaluation. Although it was initially expected to make a 40% devaluation, the exchange rate of 1 peso to 1 dollar jumped to 3 pesos to 1 dollar, a 200% devaluation. The higher dollar price allowed for more lucrative exports, increased economic activity and a growth in the employment rates, but at the cost of a higher
cost of living. The financial operations made in dollars were subject to a strong currency substitution to pesos, the "pesification". There were disputes over the
exchange rate of such substitution, as the current price of the dollar in the open market would force most firms and individual debtor to bankruptcy. The initial policy was to make 1 to 1 substitutions to the operations below 100,000 dollars. The bank accounts in dollars would be "pesified" at a 1.4 exchange rate, and the state financed the banks for the different rates with other operations. The taxes of public services were "pesified" and fixed at their current values. Most industries benefited from the "pesification" and the devaluation, as they could now export at higher prices, and the economy started to improve. The jump in the international price of
soybean in July 2002 also proved highly beneficial. The devaluation also increased the price of imported products, which allowed
import substitution industrialization. As the local prices became cheap in dollars,
international tourism to the country was increased. The national state absorbed the debts of the provinces and the bonds used as
alternative currency, on the condition that they transferred the power to issue bonds. Jorge Remes Lenicov resigned in April, alongside ministers De Mendiguren and Capitanich. Peronist governors, legislators, and union leaders met at the
Quinta de Olivos, amid rumors that Duhalde would appoint the populist
Daniel Carbonetto as minister of economy. They gave their full support to the president and the economic policies instrumented so far. As a result, Duhalde appointed the conservative
Roberto Lavagna. Lavagna was the Argentine ambassador to the
European Union, and switched offices with Remes Lenicov. He was suggested by Governor Carlos Ruckauf and supported by Alfonsín. He stabilised prices and the exchange rate with tight fiscal and monetary policies, and prevented the crisis from growing into a
hyperinflation. The recovery also benefited from the idle capacity of the economy.
Domestic policy On the political level, Duhalde's presidency was strongly influenced by his feud with Menem. Menem wanted to run for a new term as president in the
2003 election, and Duhalde wanted to prevent it. To this purpose, he sought other candidates that may have defeated him. Some of these potential candidates were
Carlos Reutemann, José Manuel de la Sota,
Mauricio Macri, Adolfo Rodríguez Saá,
Felipe Solá and Roberto Lavagna, but none of those negotiations bore fruit. The scandal over the death of the
piqueteros Maximiliano Kosteki and Darío Santillán in the
Avellaneda massacre forced Duhalde to rush the elections by six months. As a result, he chose
Néstor Kirchner, governor of
Santa Cruz Province, despite his reservations. Kirchner was fifth in the presidential polls, and was mostly unknown by the public. Duhalde speculated that, although Menem had a large number of willing voters to begin with, he was also very unpopular. Thus, Menem might have won the elections but if the results called for a
ballotage, most of the population would rally under any candidate with a chance to defeat him. To harm Menem's chances even further, the 2003 election used a variant of the
Ley de Lemas for a single time. This way, the Peronists Menem, Kirchner and Rodríguez Saá did not run for primary elections, but faced each other directly in the open election. None of the three candidates ran on the
Justicialist Party ticket, but for special parties created for the occasion: Menem for the "Front for Loyalty", Kirchner for the "
Front for Victory" and Rodríguez Saá (who run for president anyway, but as a critic of Duhalde) for the "Front of the National and Popular Movement". It was also announced that Lavagna would stay as minister of Economy during a presidency of Kirchner, to capitalize the support for the ongoing economic policies. Menem defeated Kirchner in the elections, benefited by the lack of popular candidates, but gave up running for a ballotage, fearing that he would lose this special election.
Foreign policy and Argentine minister of defense
Horacio Jaunarena Duhalde was appointed president in the aftermath of the
September 11 attacks, when the foreign policy of the
United States was strictly focused on the
war on terror. Initially, the Argentine society was divided on how to manage the
bilateral relations with the US. One group wanted to keep the close relations of the previous decade, as Argentina might need foreign help to deal with the crisis. The other group preferred to maintain more distant relations. Duhalde sought to strike a balance between both options, and eventually leaned towards the second when the US refused to help Argentina. Argentina voted in the
United Nations condemning the human rights violations in
Cuba, but refused to send military forces to
Afghanistan and
Iraq. Still, Duhalde proposed to send peacekeeping troops, and strongly criticized the regime of
Saddam Hussein and international terrorism. Duhalde increased his criticism of the United States during the final years of his government, and changed the vote in relation to Cuba to an abstention. Those changes were motivated by the upcoming 2003 elections. Menem, who was running for a third term as president, supported the vote condemning Cuba and the military aid to the United States. The devaluation caused a diplomatic conflict with
Spain, as Duhalde did not allow the Spanish service providers to raise taxes. So far, they received their income according to the dollar exchange rate, and intended to raise taxes to compensate their losses. The Argentine government considered that the effects of the crisis were already grave enough for the people, and further price increases would only worsen the situation.
José María Aznar, prime minister of Spain, talked with Duhalde on behalf of the Spanish firms. The taxes were not raised, but Aznar stayed on good terms with Duhalde, and ratified the good relations with the country regardless of the victor of the 2003 elections. ==Later years==