Menem led Argentina for 10 years in the 1990s as a Peronist leader with a liberal ideology and a strident style. His privatizing and liberal ideology made him the lover of the International Monetary Fund, Wall Street investors, American Republicans and the Davos business forum.
The charismatic Carlos Menem, who died this Sunday in Buenos Aires at the age of 90, led Argentina for 10 years in the 1990s as a Peronist leader with a liberal ideology and a strident style, as opposed to the low profile of his last years as a senator.
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On June 13, 2020, in the middle of the coronavirus quarantine, he was hospitalized in Buenos Aires for complicated pneumonia with a cardiac history. Since then, his hospitalizations have become more frequent for various ailments. “He had an enormous charisma,” President Fernández, also a Peronist, recalled in an interview with C5N.
Born on July 2, 1930 into a Syrian immigrant family, Menem boasted that he never lost the election. “For Argentina, it meant something very strong,” said political scientist Carlos Fara. “Not only because he had an exceptional leadership that determined him to be re-elected with 50% of the vote, but because he was the last leader of a totally unified Peronism,” he said. Peronism, a political movement founded by Juan Domingo Perón in the 1940s, has brought together all ideological currents throughout its history, from the radical left to the extreme right.
President between 1989 and 1999, “El Turco” loved luxury, women, sports, driving Ferrari cars, watches and sparkling wine. His privatizing and liberal ideology made him the lover of the International Monetary Fund, Wall Street investors, American Republicans and the Davos business forum. With his iconic perceptions and high profile, Menem faced the hyperinflation and social explosion that led Raúl Alfonsín (1983-1989) to advance the elections and transfer of command by a few months.
Menem ran for president again in 2003 and won the first round with 24% of the vote, compared to 22% for Peronist Néstor Kirchner. However, he refused to run in the election because he feared an avalanche of votes for his rival, who was eventually established.
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A law graduate, Menem was governor of his home province of La Rioja on two occasions, the first in 1973, although he was stripped of his position when the 1976 coup took place and was detained for two years. “We must always acknowledge his courage and support for democracy. When the dictatorship came, it closed it for years “, said President Fernández.
Political scars
Menem promoted the reform of the Constitution in 1994, which introduced immediate presidential re-election, in addition to abolishing the requirement to profess the Catholic religion for those who exercise the head of state. He also pardoned those most responsible for the last dictatorship (1976-1983) who had been prosecuted and members of guerrilla organizations.
Controversial was, therefore, his management of the economy, with a great commercial opening and an intense process of privatization of state-owned companies: to defeat inflation, which he achieved, in 1991 he implemented the “one-to-one” system. which has maintained parity between the peso and the dollar for more than a decade, a pattern that worked during his first term and turned the 1990s into a moment of euphoria, but in the second – after his re-election in 1995 – began to shows imbalances and has come to exploit and lay the groundwork, according to some analysts, for the “coralito” crisis that erupted in 2001, during the tenure of conservative Fernando de la Rúa.
He was remanded in custody at home in 2001 for trial arms smuggling in Croatia and Ecuador, but was released weeks later by the decision of the Supreme Court of Justice and later acquitted for excess time in a case that lasted 25 years. Illegal arms sales to Ecuador took place despite the fact that Argentina was the guarantor of peace in the 1995 confrontation between Lima and Quito. “It has become extremely controversial because of corruption, the social cost of its reforms and the political consequences,” Fara said.
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Fueros avoided prison in the trials against him, including one to cover the attack on the 1994 Jewish mutual AMIA, which resulted in 85 deaths. In 2019, he received a new three-year sentence for embezzlement, without serving time for his senator immunity.
He was the only Latin American president to join the Western alliance to participate in the Gulf War (1990-91), with the dispatch of two ships. “We have carnal relations with the United States,” he said.
Showbiz and divorce
In the 1990s, during its heyday, Menem was the architect of a way of socializing christened “champagne pizza”, with which he was identified as “the new rich man”. The presidential residence was open to entertainment and Menem received the Brazilian Xuxa, the German model Claudia Schiffer, the British Rolling Stones, the Mexican Luis Miguel and the Americans Michael Jackson and Madonna, among others.
But the same residence was closed for his own wife, Zulema Yoma, whom he fired in 1990. Years later, he married former Chilean Miss Universe Cecilia Bolocco, with whom he had his son Máximo. With Yoma he had Zulemita and Carlos, the latter killed in a helicopter crash that was never clarified. He was also the father of Carlos Nair Menem Meza. “A lot of people loved my father very much. He was a great man. You may or may not agree with his policies, but he was a great person, a great friend “, said Zulemița outside the clinic.
Goodbye to him
The burning chapel with the remains of former Argentine President Carlos Menem (1989-1999) was installed in the Senate of the Nation, after the coffin reached the Congress, where it was received by Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and her family. “He will rest in the Islamic cemetery with my brother, even if he professes the Catholic religion, to be with my brother,” said his daughter Zulemita Menem.
Farewell to the former president will be open to the public in the Blue Room of the Nation’s Senate and will run until tomorrow, Monday, according to official sources. His body will be buried in the Islamic cemetery in the province of Buenos Aires, where the remains of the politician’s eldest son, Carlos Menem Jr, are buried, despite the fact that Menem professed the Catholic religion, as confirmed today by his daughter Zulemita at the sanatorium door. where the former president died.
When the funeral procession entered Congress, it was greeted with applause and cheers by the people who, despite the rain, gathered at the gates of Congress to fire the former president. The current head of state, Alberto Fernández, also a Peronist, like the deceased, expressed his “deep regret” and decreed three days of national mourning. Shortly after the burning chapel was installed, President Fernández attended the vigil accompanied by the first lady, Fabiola Yáñez.