Nestor on Argentina

[Michael Perelman <michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I asked:  Nestor, the Wall Street Journal today says that the government
is expected to win its referendum on the austarity plan.  Is that true?

Nestor responded:

Calling that abortion a "Referendum" is, in fact, abusive. In order to
understand this, a relatively long explanation is needed. Sorry, can't
write
shorter.

We are facing elections here, on October. These are parliamentary
elections,
and three things are expected to happen:

(a) a substantial increase in void and null votes,
(b) a defeat of the candidates of the Radical party (and perhaps the
apparition
      of new, "alternative" parties)
(c) a shift of responsibilities for the national disaster to the
"political
      class" which will provide an alibi to the ruling classes and the
IMF-US
      sponsored economic teams

(a) The increase in null/blank vote, moreover, will coincide with a
reduction
in the numbers of actual voters. Since we Argentineans have a mandatory
vote
system (in our case, a particularly _democratic_ trait, as I have argued

elsewhere; in fact, the most reactionary sectors of our society are
permanently
drumming on the idea that vote should be "free", that is, that _only the
rich
ones should vote_). This decission not to vote is a positive, rather
than a
negative action, since it implies a clear rejection of every alternative
at
stake.

This is a most important issue in Argentinean politics: in 1994, during
the
discussions that came to be known as the "Olivos agreement" between
Radicals
and Peronists (Alfonsín-Menem), and which preceded the Constitutional
reform of
that year, both parties -and their "leftist" entourage- agreed that
blank votes
would not be taken into account at the moment of distributing the posts.
In
concrete terms, this means that the current informal ruling bloc of
Radicals,
Peronists and "liberal progressives" that leads the country since 1983
were
aware of the contradiction between the policies that they were "forced"
or
"eager" to support, under foreign pressure, and the will of the masses.

They knew, already in that year (it was obvious for whoever wanted to
see),
that under the current economic system they would be forced to make
promises
that they would never be able to bring down to Earth, much to the
contrary.
Thus, they foresaw that "mainstream politics" would become a four letter
word.
Then they were cautious enough to put the blank/void/null vote in the
attic of
"irrelevance". This, of course, only adds to their relevance!

Some background is necessary here, to understand up to which point this
is not
a secondary issue:  during the last decade of the 19th. century and the
first
15 years of the 20th., the founder of the (then truly) radical Radical
party,
Hipólito Yrigoyen, made systematic use of electoral abstentionism as a
weapon
against the regime and as a lever to bring to life a civilized electoral

system. The current Radicals, who are for the most part very conscious
that
they are traitors to the legacy of Yrigoyen, don't ignore this.

And what about Peronists? Their own history forces them to remember that
under
particular circumstances blank vote can cripple a government from its
very
beginning. This is what happened with the minority government of the
Radical
Arturo U. Illia, in the mid-60s, who became President with less votes
than the
Peronist blank votes.

So that both major partners in the United Party of Dependency -as we in
the PIN
call the whole bunch- have good reasons to mistrust clear expression of
political will.

In this sense, when people are fed up, they either vote blank, null, or
don't
vote. If the turnover of the election displays a great proportion of
this kind
of vote, it will be impossible to hide that the mainstream politicians
are
irrepresentative. But this is something that the Right can be rejoiced
about,
as it will be shown later, and this rejoicing is what the NYTimes
position is
exposing. Please be patient.

(b) The defeat (in some cases, overwhelming) of the candidates of the
parties
of the Alianza will not imply a change in the basic elements of economic

policies. This is, in part, a consequence of the above. But if we want
to
understand the thing in its fullness, we must take into account the
whole
political landscape.

To begin with, the "De la Rúa - Cavallo - NYTimes" government in fact is
NOT
represented in these elections (save for a few exceptions on which I
will
comment later), because the candidates of De la Rúa have lost the
internal
elections in the Radical Party. None of them will have a possibility to
get to
the Congress, and it is on this fact -already accepted by everybody here
save
for the lunatic group surrounding De la Rúa- that the Radicals who
oppose him
are beginning to establish their future strategies (which include the
resignation of the current President, the soonest the bestest). The
"referendum" is, in this narrow sense, the answer that De la Rúa is
preparing
against these unruly enemies in his own camp.

The government is an Alliance, however, you could say. You have the
Radicals
and the Frepaso, don't you?  Well, the _corpse_ of the Frepaso, insofar
as it
is still breathing, is the corpse of a "party" whose supporters are now
in
different degrees of opposition to the government, the main body of this

fraction of society being distressed petty bourgeois voters who have
been the
most attacked by the government's policies (keep in mind, that Machinea,

Cavallo's predecessor in the Ministery of Economy, enjoyed a "good will
gaze"
from these sectors).

The corpse keeps linked to the government by a very narrow thread, which
those
disappointed voters of the Alianza against Menem see -quite reasonably-
as that
of the permanence in public office by the "bold" politicians of yore.

It is very meaningful to realize that the only members of the Government
who
are _going_ to the elections now are the Cavallists, for example Tomás
Liendo
(who can display an eloquent record of participation, that extends far
back to
his military father, in oligarchic and imperialist regimes). Liendo is
said to
be going on the lists of the Justicialist party (the party of Menem,
and, yes,
the "opposition" to the ruling coalition: nothing expresses better the
tension
between De la Rúa and his own party than this fact!) in the Federal
District.

As to the Peronist voters, well, the way the thing has been concocted
they are
_not_ represented by any of the alternatives at hand. What they will be
offered
is a menu of different branches of the Justicialist party (the "PJ")
which acts
as a confederation of provincial parties.

In particular, in the Province of Buenos Aires their main candidate will
be
Eduardo Luis Duhalde, former candidate to Presidency who is already well
known
as the "oppositionist" Vice President during the first half of the Menem
age,
and after that as the "oppositionist" Governor of the Province of Buenos
Aires
during the second half. Now he is the "oppositionist" Peronist to
Ruckauf,  the
current Peronist Governor of Buenos Aires, a sour and dangerous type.
And this
almost clownesque Duhalde is their best choice. The others are still
worse.

No alternatives, then? In a sense, no alternatives. But allow me to
explain
what does this exactly mean. Because the "referendum" is also intended
against
these eventual alternatives by restricting the elective posts in the
Argentinean constituency.

The alternatives to the traditional parties are still beginning to be
born. On
the one hand, you have the "traditional left" which, in my opinion, is
not an
alternative at all, but of course this is a personal belief, not that of
some
fractions of the middle classes and even of the working class. On the
other
hand, you have the different ways in which the national liberation front
has
been trying to coallesce and reconstruct itself after the disastrous
ellimination of Peronism as a representation of that front.

The last ten years or so have seen three of these attempts, all of which
I know
from within. The earliest one was headed during the late 80s/early 90s
by film-
maker Pino Solanas. The "traditional left" elements within it destroyed
this
attempt, which eventually degenerated --in the Frepaso! Later during the
90s we
had the attempt by Saúl Ubaldini, which was destroyed from within by the

personality of Ubaldini and, to a more serious extent, by the
limitations of
the Peronist unionists (who were his main support structure) to overcome
their
traditional system of ideas and actions.

And now -mind you, after two major defeats- there is a third attempt,
which is
beginning to turn around the figure of Father Luis Farinello, again with
a
strong backing from the boldest and most active rebel unions of the CGT
of
Moyano, who have gained in political insight during the process.

This attempt, however, is embryonic, and at most can hope to get some
seats in
the Congress that will allow for larger audience and growth with the
2003
Presidentials in mind.

In this way, the basic desire of the Argentineans, which is to gain
control of
our country again, finds no way to safely get to power through the next
elections. And the general despair induced by the neoliberal economic
policies
only helps stressing this rejection of politics.

We are thus living through a period of dillution of the traditional
party
system in Argentina, something that has already happened (in fact, this
is a
structural trait in our politics) each time a historical cycle was
closing (1).
The old world is already rotten, and the new one is still not born. In
our
history, these periods are particularly cynical ones. If you want to
know what
is the mood of lower middle class and poor masses in these days, you
have to
turn to "national rock" lyrics, or more bitingly yet to the "cumbia
villera"
bands. They display the violent,  gloomy, dark, cynical state of mind of
the
mass that is under permanent attack and cannot find a concrete political
way
out.

All the situation turns most people to believe that no candidate will be

representative of the necessities of the country, and that -basic for
the bet
of De la Rúa-Cavallo-NYTimes- "politics" is a dirty thing.

(c) then, the third thing that is expected to happen, in fact is ALREADY

happening and the "referendum" is an integral part of it, is that in the
same
way that the civilians of the 1976-83 regime blamed the military for
what
happened, and escaped the sinking boat, now the economists and their
close
advisors are beginning to blame the civilian politicians for what is
happening,
and trying to escape the newly sinking boat.

It is most important to understand this, because without this string of
betrayals the imperialist-oligarchic rosca would not be able to rule
Argentina.

In the 1982-85 period, presided basically by Alfonsín and his internal
ally in
the oligarchic military summit (General Bignone, the last President of
the 1976
dictatorship), popular hatred of military rule was diverted against the
institution as a whole. This was a most important objective for the host
of
civilian politicians who had been supporting, in the open or ambushed in
a
guilty silence, the military regime. Incidentally, De la Rúa ranked at
the top
of the second category.

In fact, the 1983-1995 period can be seen as the decade where the
imperialist-
oligarchic rosca dismantled the "Military Party" that was not useful any
more,
and began to attack the military institutions which had proved a
dangerous
support during the South Atlantic battles of 1982.

The first serious step in this direction was taken by Menem when he
ruled out
military service in 1991, at the same time that he elliminated the
productive
branches of the Armed Forces. These were very popular measures at that
moment,
thanks to the policies that had been previously followed by Alfonsín
between
1983 and 1989. Thus, a justified but essentially misdirected hatred
served to
the great goal of the rosca, which tried to break the two basic links
between
the Armed Forces and the mass of the population: the army of
citizen-soldiers,
and the direct involvement of the national army in the productive
structure.

As a result of this continued effort at reshaping them, the Argentinean
Armed
Forces, today, have become just another example of a ghurka Armed Force,
and
Argentinean soldiers are for hire wherever imperialists need them to act

against a rebel people. The _institution_ as such is already starved and
in
comma. I would be not surprised at all if, tomorrow, a proposition to
replace
the Armed Forces with a National Guard (like that of Somoza) gained
momentum.
In fact, there are already some hints that the Cavallists and the right
in
general are beginning to ponder above the idea.

This is what happened to the military who served the imperialist master.
The
moment has now come to immolate the civilians.

In a similar way, hatred of people against the current political
situation is
increasingly diverted by the media (the NYTimes heading the chorus line,
by the
way) against politicians. People see that the "carreer" of a politician
is a
very rewarding one. Cases of bribery are widespread and fully commented.
While
retired people who already live on starvation level pensions see their
payments
cut off 13%, politicians are publicly denounced as earning enormous
amounts of
money (which is sometimes true). While wage earners are forced down into
the
economic ladder, the mainstream press lavishly publicizes the unwisely
(or
should we say structurally useful) conspicuous consumption by the main
figures
of the "political class". Moreover, the media are permanently hammering
in the
mind of people the very idea of a "political class", the only "class"
that the
establishment speaks about.

All of this, and more, turns people against politicians and politics as
a
whole. The system is so perfect that when Father Luis Farinello attempts
to
bring to life a political alliance where candidacies are less important
than
ideas and programmes, the system almost automatically generates against
him
Elisa (Lilita) Carrió, who diverts attention from political debate
towards what
abstract moralism against what she calls the "Maffia state". And so on.

It is in this asphyxiating political atmosphere that De la Rúa has
decided to
propose a "referendum" to be held some weeks after the elections that he
will
lose. This referendum will be a referendum around the "costs of
politics" ,
which is the way in which IMF economists speak of the inherent
investment that
has to be done in every society, even in a bourgeois society, to keep
some form
of actually representative government on the tracks. The politicians and
their
myopic views have been very functional to this new assault against the
Argentineans by the forces of Evil, of course(2), but this assault that
is
presented as a cleanup of the Augean stables of politics in Argentina
will
clean nothing up; it will, however, help further shrinking the
Argentinean
state, and the NYTimes displays the referendum as what it actually is.
But
Argentineans are denied the right to understand the core idea, because
of the
hatred that the "political class" has produced.

The "referendum" will NOT be called on the austerity plan, then. It will
be
called on the "costs of politics". Most people, unless we can do
something
about it, will vote against the "high cost of politics". And it menaces
to
become a Phyrric victory of the IMF-De la Rúa-Cavallo-NYTimes gang
against the
Argentineans, their revenge of the rejection that they will suffer in
October.

Because, even with all its failures, our current political system still
represents a boulder in the IMF-directed march towards open
transformation of
Argentina in a Batista/Somoza country. Even these corrupt and stupid
politicians have some people to attend to. Even they have a clientele
that must
be cared for. Even they need to legitimate themselves, if not with
politics, at
least with alimonies.

The meaning of the referendum, in practical terms, is "alimonies, yes or
no?".
The IMF, of course, is against them. They are too expensive now, what we
need
is less co-optation and more repression. The brutal reaction of the
police
(apparently generated by a gang of secret service types who began to
throw
stones at the cops) against the peaceful march of bus drivers and
_owners_ in
Buenos Aires a couple of days ago, the brutal repression to the state
employees
in San Juan yesterday, are all demonstrations that the next step will be
to
enforce the destruction of what remains of Argentina by the strength of
the
gun, under a "cheap" institutional framework that will probably be the
last
battle of De la Rúa in power: the ellimination of what remains of actual

representation in the system.

In the same sense that abstract anti-militarism allowed the imperialist-

oligarchic rosca to break up the links between the Armed Forces and the
general
mass of the Argentineans turning them into a professional army of
soldiers on
hire (a "product" to be exported wherever the Empire needs them), this
referendum tries to help the rosca to get rid of the bulk of the
"political
class". Like the military, they have done their job. Now they must be
laid off.
But this represents a transition towards a harsher, still more
repressive
Argentina, under conditions of popular hatred against the system.

Even if he wins the referendum, De la Rúa will have a very dark time
when he
tries to push ahead his _own_ interpretation of the slimy question that
he will
pose to society. Because we stubborn Argentineans will still be
struggling
against him, the NYTimes, and all that mass of shit.

N O T E S

(1) Thus, you have the waning away of the Federal and Unitarian parties
which
brought to us the system of the Partido Autonomista Nacional (PAN)
against the
Mitrist (Liberal) party during the late 1800s, then the dillution of the
PAN
and its replacement with the Radical-Conservative parties during the
first
third of the 20th. century, and later on the replacement of the Radical-

Conservative structure by the Peronist-Unión Democrática system between
1945
and, say, 1983.

(2) For example, in order that some minor political interests be
protected, the
1994 Constitutional Convention raised the number of members of the
Senate from
2 per province to 3. Stupid blunders of this kind (which in our current
political scenario are a layer as thick as snow in Siberian winters) may
cost
the "political class" a lot. And a lot more to our population. Were they

blunders, in fact?



Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
gorojovsky@xxxxxxxxxxxx

--

Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Chico, CA 95929
530-898-5321
fax 530-898-5901