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Carlos Saúl Menem, the man who ruled Argentina the longest without interruption, He died this Sunday at the age of 90. The former president died this morning at the Los Arcos Sanatorium, in Palermo.
Active in politics almost to the end, the former president had participated in the first virtual meetings of the Senate as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, in his role as representative of La Rioja, a position he had held since December 10, 2005. But A severe pneumonia diagnosed on June 13 and made worse by his diabetes problems seriously deteriorated his health in recent weeks. He was first at the Argentine Institute of Diagnosis (IADT) and then at the Sanatorio Los Arcos, in Palermo.
Born in Anillaco, La Rioja, on July 2, 1930, the son of Syrian immigrants, Menem studied law in Córdoba (1949-1955) and developed a political career in Peronism in his province from a very young age. He came to preside over it in 1963. In 1973 he won the local elections and became governor, a position from which he was removed by the dictatorship in 1976. He was detained for a good part of that period.
Argentina’s changes in the nineties
His government promoted the deregulation of the economy and the privatization of the main public companies, in a process obscured by countless suspicions of corruption. Under his mandate, the worst attacks on Argentine soil took place (Israeli Embassy and AMIA). And, due to his impulse, the Constitution was reformed, the result of the Pact of Olivos, sealed with Raúl Alfonsín. Thanks to this change, he was able to be reelected in 1995 (with almost 50%).
He served 10 and a half years of continuous government, without achieving his dream of another reelection, a project that he tried despite the legal prohibition. Upon his departure in December 1999, the economy suffered a recession, with dramatic effects on employment and poverty, anticipating the drama of 2001. But he was able to hand over the presidential sash to Fernando de la Rúa with the peso-dollar parity intact.
Convictions against you
In 2001, he was imprisoned for almost six months in a villa owned by his friend Armando Gostanian, accused in the investigation for the illegal sale of arms to Croatia and Ecuador. For this reason, he was tried and acquitted in 2011. The Court of Cassation reversed the ruling and he was sentenced to seven years in prison. But another chamber of Cassation ended up acquitting him in 2018, after an appeal to the Court, considering that the “reasonable period” for the issuance of a final judgment had expired.
In 2015 was sentenced to four and a half years in prison in a case for alleged payment of bonuses. Last year he was acquitted in the trial for covering up the attack against the AMIA and, shortly after, he was given three years and nine months in a case for alleged fraud in the sale of the Rural Society property in Palermo. None of the sentences was final and, thanks to the parliamentary jurisdiction, he always remained at large.
His last attempt to reach the government was in 2003. With Peronism divided, he came first in the April 27 elections (24.4%), but decided not to compete in the ballottage against Néstor Kirchner, knowing that it would be impossible to get half plus one of the votes.
In 2005 he reached the Senate and, except for a frustrated attempt to become governor of La Rioja again, in 2007, his political ambition faded. Little by little he ceased to be the public enemy of Kirchnerism, to the point of first becoming an unspeakable ally for the government of Cristina Kirchner in the Senate and later, in the final months, in an official member to the Frente de Todos.
She had four children. Two from his first marriage, with Zulema Yoma: Carlos Jr. (who died in an episode investigated by the Justice in 1995) and Zulemita; one fruit of his relationship with Martha Meza, Carlos Nair; and the last, Máximo, with his second wife, Chilean television presenter Cecilia Bolocco.
His last years were spent in an apartment in the Belgrano neighborhood, where his daughter always assisted him. He maintained permanent contact with collaborators from his presidential administration and had even regained dialogue with his great rivals, such as Eduardo Duhalde.
THE NATION (ARGENTINA)
GDA
