Kirchnerismo: Legacies and Future

Former Argentine President and current UNASUR secretary general Nestor Kirchner died unexpectedly Wednesday morning, in the Southern Argentine city of El Calafate. The cause of death, doctors say: a sudden heart-attack. Kirchner was 60 years old.

The New York Times says the death of Mr. Kirchner throws both the remaining year of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s term, as well as next year’s elections, into a “sudden state of flux.” Political insiders have long maintained the popular ex-president “exercised substantial behind the scenes influence” within his wife’s government. Many analysts had expected the first gentleman to run again next year – and be the frontrunner. Cynthia Arnson, director of the Latin America program at Washington's Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, in the Washington Post this morning, says:

“Nestor Kirchner was such an obvious choice in the next presidential election that this just throws the deck of cards into the air. Obviously, there's now going to be tremendous jockeying, but no one commands the national following that he had.”

The Economist hardly treats Mr. Kirchner’s passing and his presidency with much sympathy, arguing Kirchner “exemplified the country’s caudillo-centric political culture.” It continues: “In most countries, the death of a presidential spouse would be seen as a national tragedy. In Argentina, it is a political upheaval.” The magazine adds that Mr. Kirchner’s death could embolden a presidential runs by lesser known Peronistas who “might have kept their ambitions in check for fear of Mr. Kirchner’s wrath.” Among those mentioned, Daniel Scioli, Kirchner’s former VP and currently the governor of the province of Buenos Aires.

It was the world of international high finance, often associated with the Economist, where Kirchner undoubtedly left his deepest mark – and it is there where we find some of the most uncouth statements on the former president’s death. Here’s Roberto Sanchez-Dahl, who oversees $1.1 billion in emerging market debt for Pittsburgh-based Federated Investment Management, from Reuters:

“Sincerely, for Argentina and from a market perspective there is nothing better than knowing that Kirchner will be out of the presidential race of next year. For years his confrontational, resentful style towards investors, companies and bond holdouts deprived Argentina of much-needed capital.”

The Financial Times, meanwhile, says the price of Argentine bonds rose sharply yesterday, simply on hearing news of Kirchner’s passing. Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research puts such reactions into historical perspective by comparing Kirchner’s defiance of international financiers and his successful jump starting of an economy in crisis to the presidency of FDR. Weisbrot:

“Argentina's recession from 1998-2002 was, indeed, comparable to the Depression in terms of unemployment, which peaked at more than 21%, and lost output (about 20% of GDP). The majority of Argentines, who had, until then, enjoyed living standards among the highest in Latin America, were pushed below the poverty line. In December of 2002 and January 2003, the country underwent a massive devaluation, a world-historical record sovereign default on $95bn of debt, and a collapse of the financial system.”

Under Kirchner’s watch, growth was restored, averaging 8 percent annually. In addition, more than 11 million, in the country of 40 million, were pulled out of poverty during the Kirchner presidency.

[If interested, I recommend re-reading the transcript from a fascinating debate between Nestor Kirchner and Paul Krugman in New York in 2004, dealing with Argentina’s economic crisis – also perhaps the first reference to a OPEC of soybean producers, an idea which resurfaced again last week].

Kirchner’s other legacies, as various reports suggest: his decision to fight impunity by both overhauling a corrupt judiciary and restarting the prosecution of military officials involved in the country’s dirty wars, as well as a commitment to bolstering Latin American regional integration. The latter was a project in which Kirchner was most recently active, becoming UNASUR’s first permanent secretary general earlier this year. More from Página 12, Clarín, and Beatriz Sarlo, who has a moving opinion on Kirchner and human rights, in La Nación.

To other stories:

· In Mexico, another massacre at a drug rehabilitation center, this time in the state of Nayarit, 400 miles west of Mexico City. Reports say gunmen killed 15 men who were outside the treatment center, washing cars. As the New York Times notes, the incident is the third such mass killing in the last week. More from El Universal which says the murders were carried out by unknown individuals riding in three unmarked trucks. The CS Monitor looks at why recovering addicts have become a target of violence.

· Meanwhile, more reporting on President Felipe Calderon’s statements on the BBC, including the president’s claim that “there is no alternative” to the fight he is currently waging against organized crime. Calderon also takes a shot at his predecessor Vicente Fox who has publicly broken with the current president over his handling of the drug wars. Calderon says Fox “didn't act in time” to stem the rise of the cartels. Calderon:

“I think that if Mexico had started to fight against this problem 10 years ago, we would be talking about something completely different now.”

· On the cholera crisis in Haiti, the Wall Street Journal this morning has a much more pessimistic take on the situation than other reports from the past week. The Pan American Health Organization said 4,147 people have been infected and 292 have died from the outbreak thus far, up from more than 3,100 infected and more than 250 dead on Monday. And at a news conference Wednesday, PAHO deputy director Jon Andrus offered the following assessment:

“With a disease like this, you see a rapid upswing in the number of cases over a short period of time, and that's what we're seeing…[the epidemic] doesn't appear to be stabilizing.”

The New York Times, meanwhile, reports on the closing of a 400-bed Doctors without Borders cholera treatment center in St. Marc, Haiti – this following a resident protest against the center being constructed so close to the non-infected population. The Times also reports on protests against the UN itself in Mirabelais where residents maintain the contamination of a local river by human waste from a United Nations force from Nepal could have triggered the cholera outbreak. Those allegations provoked the United Nations mission to “issue a communiqué explaining that their septic system met international environmental standards and that none of their waste was dumped in the river.” But no sign of an actual investigation yet.

· On the impact which the cholera outbreak is having on scheduled elections in late November, the Miami Herald has a report, saying some candidates are now calling for the vote to be delayed. “The vote should happen when the World Health Organization says [cholera] is contained, or when the [Provisional Electoral Council] says this election will not use rallies,” candidate Leslie Voltaire tells the paper. No indication from the government that it plans to move the date. And on Wednesday, the Herald says that message was reiterated in Washington where “the diplomat leading a joint Organization of American States/Caribbean Community observation mission reported that ‘the electoral process is progressing steadily toward 28 November.’” The International Crisis Group also has a report on the November vote calling it “perhaps the most important elections in [Haitian] history.” But, it too notes, the legitimacy of those elections is in question. ICG:

“[T]he historical obstacles – such as low turnout, suspicion of fraud and campaign violence – not only persist but have been greatly exacerbated by the 12 January earthquake that killed a quarter million people and left the capital in ruins and its government in disarray, as well as by the current outbreak of cholera.”

· The New York Times on the New York Philharmonic’s petition to the US Treasury Dept. that it be allowed to perform in Havana.

· The Wilson Center posts a speech given by Nicaraguan journalist Carlos F. Chamorro at an event sponsored by the Center’s Latin America Program and the Open Society Institute in Washington earlier in the week.

· And Nick Kristof at the New York Times is the latest columnist to come out with a pro-Prop. 19 opinion. Kristof: “Our nearly century-long experiment in banning marijuana has failed as abysmally as Prohibition did, and California may now be pioneering a saner approach. Sure, there are risks if California legalizes pot. But our present drug policy has three catastrophic consequences.” The full-case for legal weed at the Times.