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Argentina Appoints New Interim President
BUENOS AIRES, Dec. 22 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - After three days of social unrest, widespread looting and police repression that left at least 27 dead and more than 150 wounded, Argentina entered a tense waiting period Saturday as power passed from Radical party president Fernando de la Rua, to Adolfo Rodriguez.
De la Rua returned Friday to the presidential palace for his last decision as president, to suspend the state of emergency he had declared a day earlier, the British daily newspaper,
The Independent, reported.
"What I've heard is the voice of the people," De la Rua told reporters. "I've given the best of myself to the country."
For his part, Rodriguez, who was named Argentina's interim president, said he will pursue a strict economic policy to try and deal with the crisis in the country, BBC's online news service reported.
Rodriguez said he would keep the national currency, the peso, pegged to the dollar - and promised to announce his economic plan after confirmed in his post by Congress.
Rodriguez will serve as president until elections on March 3.
Rodriguez was chosen by the Peronist party, which controls parliament, after the resignation of de la Rua, following violent street protests over the government's handling of the economic crisis.
Two judges barred de la Rua from leaving the country while an investigation is launched into police conduct in dealing with the disorder.
Police on horseback charged demonstrators and looters, pummeling them with water cannon and volleys of tear gas - often firing directly at protesters. More than 2,000 people were arrested nationwide.
The announcement of an interim president came as U.S. President George W. Bush urged the country's new leader to push through an austerity program proposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Earlier this month, the IMF refused Argentina a further $1.3 billion in standby loans unless it balanced its budget for the year 2002.
Rodriguez said he would impose "a severe austerity plan" and announce an economic program which would be "very simple, made up of a few clear ideas".
After a four-year recession, with official unemployment at 18%, Argentina is in danger of defaulting on its $132 billion external debt.
A default would in effect cut off any lifeline from the International Monetary Fund and send the country spiraling even deeper into economic crisis.
Argentina's economy minister, Domingo Cavallo, has resigned, and Oscar Lamberto appointed in his place - but it is unclear how long Lamberto will remain in office.
Fifty-year-old Rodriguez is governor of San Luis province, one of only two in the country that enjoys a budget surplus. The new president's family controls several regional newspapers, and television and stations.
A die-hard member of the Peronist party, which traces its origins to the followers of populist president Juan Domingo Peron in the 1940s, Rodriguez began his political career 30 years ago as the party's representative in San Luis and then was elected a provincial lawmaker.
He was first elected governor at the age of 36 in the first gubernatorial elections following the fall of Argentina's brutal military regime in 1983 and has been reelected four times.
A lawyer by training, Rodriguez is married and has five children. He is remembered for an extra-marital sex scandal in 1993 that made national headlines.
"I hope everyone understands the job I am being given is highly difficult and comes at a very serious moment for the country," he said after his selection by the Peronists.
According to the BBC, the big problem is that many ordinary Argentines have mortgages and other debts in dollars, as do businesses and farms. But they earn money in pesos - so any devaluation would only increase the size of their dollar debts.
The Peronists have suggested converting these debts into pesos, but this would be massively expensive and no one has explained how it would be funded. The peso has been pegged one-to-one to the dollar for the past decade.
Public fury had been sparked by government austerity measures aimed at reviving the economy.
According to the British daily The Guardian, the Peronists' return will not please the thousands of middle-class protesters who took to the streets Wednesday night. "If the Peronists return, then we're back where we started," said a woman cheering the president's resignation.
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