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- WORLD
New leader vows to share the wealth
Dangerous days ... supporters of Eduardo Duhalde, above, the new president, throw rocks at leftist protesters near the Congress in Buenos Aires. Main photo: AFP
By Chris Kraul in Buenos Aires
With Argentina teetering on the brink of anarchy, a congressional alliance of main parties has moved with rare cohesion and named Senator Eduardo Duhalde as the nation's fifth president in less than two weeks.
Mr Duhalde was nominated to the office on Tuesday by his Peronist party, which controls both houses of Congress. He was elected at a combined session of the Senate and Chamber of Deputies by a vote of 262 to 21.
In a bid to restore stability in a nation jolted by mass demonstrations, rioting and a leadership crisis, Mr Duhalde was given a two-year term. He was to be sworn in late yesterday.
He immediately announced he would form a "government of national unity" in a bid to bring the country back from "the verge of disintegration and chaos".
"We're at the limit and we know it," he said after being sworn in to run the country until the end of 2003. Although he acknowledged that "we have no external or domestic credit", he promised to run a government that would carry out "a more just distribution of riches".
The urgency of the situation was underscored by clashes during the day among thousands of political partisans outside the congressional palace. Police used tear gas to break up the melees.
Although the demonstrations seemed smaller than last week, many protesters shouted: "Duhalde, garbage, you are the dictatorship. Get out! Get out!"
Those who refused to jump on the Duhalde bandwagon insisted that elections be held in early March as announced after the December 20 resignation of president Fernando de la Rua. One such holdout was Juan Manuel de la Sota, the influential governor of Cordoba province and a presidential candidate.
But Congress apparently feared that the weakness in the Government and the chaos in the streets - which marked the week-long rule of Mr de la Rua's successor, interim president Adolfo Rodriguez Saa - would continue under another short-term caretaker government.
Mr Rodriguez Saa resigned on Sunday following demonstrations against his economic proposals and his cabinet appointees, some of whom were tainted by corruption charges.
"Duhalde is our only alternative. After that, the precipice," said Alejandro Groh, who demonstrated in front of Congress.
Argentina has been slowly bowing under the weight of a crushing foreign debt, a four-year recession, rising unemployment and mounting public disaffection with its leaders. An outburst of rioting forced the resignation of Mr de la Rua two years into his four-year term.
Mr Rodriguez Saa had proposed defaulting on Argentina's $US132 billion ($261 billion) public debt and introducing a new currency in addition to the existing peso, a move economists said would stoke hyperinflation.
Abel Viglione, of the Fiel think-tank in Buenos Aires, believes Mr Duhalde will continue Mr Rodriguez Saa's idea of favouring a default on some if not all of Argentina's public debt, since the Peronist politician took such a platform to the 1999 presidential election. Mr Duhalde finished second in the contest to Mr de la Rua.
A Peronist deputy, Carlos Brown, said the incoming president would introduce a new currency but "with care and not as a devaluation in disguise".
But several sources said they expected Mr Duhalde to reject the idea of a new currency in favour of issuing about $US3 billion in short-term vouchers that the government would use to pay public employees a portion of their salaries.
Los Angeles Times,The New York Times
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