Argentina vote goes to run-off
With 18 candidates competing in the presidential election's first round last Sunday, Menem won 24% of votes, and Kirchner, the heir-apparent of President Eduardo Duhalde, earned 22%, with 97% of ballots counted.
Voter turnout was high, at 80% of 25.5 million voters, despite predictions of apathy in this crisis-weary country. Less than 1% of voters cast blank ballots, a sign of protest.
Argentina's two front-runners both belong to the ruling Justicialista, or Peronist, party. But Menem, 72, stuck firmly to free market economic policies during his 1989-1999 presidency, while Kirchner, 53, is part of the party's left-leaning wing. The flamboyant Menem, greeting supporters at a Buenos Aires hotel with running mate Juan Carlos Romero and his former Miss Universe wife, Cecilia Bolocco, pledged a resounding victory in the second round and said he was coming back to "rescue the country from disaster". "Sixteen months ago, this presidential candidate and actual president because I already consider myself as such was condemned and defamed, without a fair trial," he said.
He was referring to his 167 days under house arrest while authorities investigated charges of illegal weapons sales to Ecuador and Croatia during his presidency. "Finally, Argentina will choose between two models, one of adjustment and exclusion, and the other of productivity, jobs, work, stability and a return to work," Kirchner said. Former economy minister Ricardo Lopez Murphy of the conservative Federal Recreation Movement came in third, with 16.4% of the vote.
The rematch will see the ruling party fight it out over how best to heal Argentina's crippled economy.
Menem is identified with neoliberal policies of open markets, free capital flows and close relations with the United States in an emerging hemisphere-wide Free Trade Area of the Americas. Kirchner advocates a Keynesian approach, with a central role for the state in boosting industry, trade and internal markets.
