Political Panorama
Por Raymond - Friday, Dec. 20, 2002 at 10:58 AM
webmaster@po.org.ar

After the 20, all these contradictions and crisis will reappear with greater force. The "Duhalde Out Now" presided over by the Federal March, dovetails with this process of economic and political exhaustion of the regime, and places the exploited on the crest of a crisis of power

Political Panorama

Marcelo Ramal

Upon indicating that the default with international agencies reflects "the failure of a country," Duhalde wound up recognizing, in a roundabout way, the total depletion of his government.

After having paid to those very agencies 4.5 billion dollars during the year, in the name of "avoiding default" and "paving the way for an accord with the IMF," Duhalde-Lavagna are seeing 2002 come to a close without an accord and with certain default, this time extended to the IMF, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. While doing so, they have surrendered to the usurers resources equivalent to four years of the current level of work fare plans.

With this new default, the "agencies" stopped transferring to the national State and the provinces resources that had already been accounted for in the budgets planned for 2003. Also "fallen" are the agreements reached between the national State and the provinces concerning the so-called "ordered financing," which demanded at least 1 billion pesos from the international agencies to mop up the deficits in Buenos Aires, Chaco, Entre Ríos and Córdoba, without counting the pension deficits of these and other provinces, which add up to another 300 million pesos. This means that with the new "default", the budgets under discussion in Congress and the provincial legislatures are not worth the paper they are printed on.

Conscious of this debacle, Duhaldism has attempted a last minute negotiation with the IDB, aimed at obtaining a bilateral accord where, in exchange for making payment on debts coming due to this bank, the payments that were going to be paid to Argentina will be made good. This operation probably counted on the support of top IDB officials, urged by the fact that the Argentine default—which involves 16 per cent of their lending portfolio—hits them hard. But an accord having these characteristics demanded prior support of the IMF, whose refusal arrived in less than twenty-four hours. In the same way, no progress will be made on the reprogramming of the public debt with private creditors, which the government had also rushed to announce with much fanfare, without clearance from the IMF. The terms of this accord are once again submerged into a "serious" crisis. Although the government promised the IMF a brutal tax "adjustment" for 2003, it could not make even a millimeter of progress on the substanti

For the IMF, the "taxation adjustment" is not enough. It also demands a squaring of accounts with the pro-devalution and pro-peso-fication bourgeoisie, for the Argentine Capitalist bankruptcy to pave the way for a vast Imperialist recolonization. Last January, the US Treasury and the "local" monopolies joined together to bring Duhalde to power, behind the common objective of devaluation. Now, the "total default" clearly shows that the coalition has reached the end of the line, with the complete exhaustion of all possibilities of the government that has been its expression.

Between two coup d'etat

In this sharp division of the exploiters, Duhalde's way out via the default walks a line between two "institutional coup": one, to finish with Duhalde; the other, to perpetuate him.

On the one hand, the agents of financial capital have already confirmed that "the problem is neither technical nor economic, but rather political. And until it is not resolved on that terrain, until there is not a democratic government with whom to negotiate seriously, the ship will stay adrift," editorializes the daily El Cronista (12/13). The same column demands, on the next line, "transparent elections", knowing, of course, that this will never happen under the control over the voting registers, city governments and party hacks that the Duhalde gang exercises in the strategic province of Buenos Aires. For this very reason, all attempts at arriving at a "consensus" for the carrying out of Peronist primaries between Menem and Duhalde have failed. When all is said and done, they question whether Duhalde can even guarantee elections promised for the end of April, which brings to the fore his removal. In the camp of this same coup may be found the Supreme Court, well disposed not only towards the r

On the other side of the street, Duhalde prepares his own "coup." Supported by briefs presented to the court that question the legality of the April elections, Duhalde may be able to push them back to October, making "effective his resignation on May 25," designating "a party leader to fill-in during the period between May 25 and December 10" (BAE, 12/16), and present himself as a candidate. This operation counts on the support of Cafiero and Alfonsín, with whose candidate in the Radical primaries (Moreau) Duhalde hacks may have collaborated, given his links in common with the pro-devaluation bourgeoisie.

Political volatility

Last January, the Duhalde coup was welcomed by Radicals and all manner of center-left fauna, from Alicia Castro to the CTA. Afterwards all of them, and also most of the left, took as a "sure thing" the electoral solution cooked up by the Buenos Aires gang, and they jumped at participating in it, whether through initiating an electoral campaign, or by declaring a "boycott" against it. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that Duhalde's reaching a dead end brings down his political tributaries: the Radical primaries have just exhibited the state of disintegration of the other historic party of the bourgeoisie, with denunciations evidencing fraud on a gigantic scale. The support front for Carrió has split after the definitive desertion of the socialists. To her left, the "horizontal" Zamora is suffering his first split, accused precisely of exercising the most stringent verticalism and personalism against his own members.

After the 19 and 20

As December 19 and 20 draws near, Duhalde's government intensifies its efforts to avoid the worsening of the economic and political crisis leading to a new Argentinazo. With this aim in mind, announcements have been made of "wage recomposition" for February and March, always "non-remuneratory" (although, with an average wage of six hundred pesos, an increase of 25 per cent may be allowed after the real wage has fallen 60 per cent during 2002). In the same way, Lavagna has announced, for the umpteenth time, the "start of reactivation," simply because the activity level rose by 1% compared to a catastrophic November, 2001. The minister consoles himself with the stability achieved in prices and the value of the dollar. But if that occurs, it is because the huge monetary emission carried out against the entrance of foreign currency was contained within the financial system by offering elevated interest rates. Now, the same abundance of deposits, and the absence of those interested in taking loans, is

After the 20, all these contradictions and crisis will reappear with greater force. The "Duhalde Out Now" presided over by the Federal March, dovetails with this process of economic and political exhaustion of the regime, and places the exploited on the crest of a crisis of power

See croniques and photos of Federal March to Plaza de Mayo

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