Argentina
Argentines are a fusion of diverse national and ethnic
groups, with descendants of Italian and Spanish
immigrants predominant. Waves of immigrants from many
European countries arrived in the late 19th and early
20th centuries. Syrian, Lebanese, and other Middle
Eastern immigrants number about 500,000 to 600,000,
mainly in urban areas. Argentina's population is
overwhelmingly Catholic, but it also has the largest
Jewish population in Latin America, estimated at between
280,000 and 300,000. In recent years, there has been a
substantial influx of immigrants from neighboring
countries, particularly Paraguay, Bolivia, and Peru. The
indigenous population, estimated at 700,000, is
concentrated in the provinces of the north, northwest,
and south. The Argentine population has one of Latin
America's lowest growth rates. Eighty percent of the
population resides in cities or towns of more than
2,000, and over one-third lives in the greater Buenos
Aires area. |
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Europeans arrived in the region with the 1502 voyage of
Amerigo Vespucci. Spanish navigator Juan Diaz de Solias
visited what is now Argentina in 1516. Spain established
a permanent colony on the site of Buenos Aires in 1580,
although initial settlement was primarily overland from
Peru. The Spanish further integrated Argentina into
their empire by establishing the Vice Royalty of Rio de
la Plata in 1776, and Buenos Aires became a flourishing
port. Buenos Aires formally declared independence from
Spain on July 9, 1816. Argentines revere Gen. Jose de
San Martin--who campaigned in Argentina, Chile, and
Peru--as the hero of their national independence.
Following the defeat of the Spanish, centralist and
federalist groups waged a lengthy conflict between
themselves to determine the future of the nation. A
modern constitution was promulgated in 1853, and a
national unity government was established in 1861.
Two forces combined to create the modern Argentine
nation in the late 19th century: the introduction of
modern agricultural techniques and integration of
Argentina into the world economy. Foreign investment and
immigration from Europe aided this economic revolution.
Investment, primarily from Britain, came in such fields
as railroads and ports. As in the United States, the
migrants who worked to develop Argentina's
resources--especially the western pampas--came from
throughout Europe.
From 1880 to 1930, Argentina became one of the world's
ten wealthiest nations as a result of the rapid
expansion of agriculture and foreign investment in
infrastructure. Conservative forces dominated Argentine
politics until 1916, when their traditional rivals, the
Radicals, won control of the government. The Radicals,
with their emphasis on fair elections and democratic
institutions, opened their doors to Argentina's rapidly
expanding middle class as well as to groups previously
excluded from power. The Argentine military forced aged
Radical President Hipolito Yrigoyen from power in 1930
and ushered in another decade of Conservative rule.
Using fraud and force when necessary, the governments of
the 1930s attempted to contain the currents of economic
and political change that eventually led to the
ascendance of Juan Domingo Peron (b. 1897). New social
and political forces were seeking political power,
including a modern military and labor movements that
emerged from the growing urban working class.
The military ousted Argentina's constitutional
government in 1943. Peron, then an army colonel, was one
of the coup's leaders, and he soon became the
government's dominant figure as Minister of Labor.
Elections carried him to the presidency in 1946. He
created the Partido Unico de la Revolucion, which became
more commonly known as the Peronist or Justicialista
party (PJ). He aggressively pursued policies aimed at
empowering the working class and greatly expanded the
number of unionized workers. In 1947, Peron announced
the first five-year plan based on the growth of
industries he nationalized. He helped establish the
powerful General Confederation of Labor (CGT). Peron's
dynamic wife, Eva Duarte de Peron, known as Evita
(1919-52), played a key role in developing support for
her husband. Peron won reelection in 1952, but the
military sent him into exile in 1955. In the 1950s and
1960s, military and civilian administrations traded
power, trying, with limited success, to deal with
diminished economic growth and continued social and
labor demands. When military governments failed to
revive the economy and suppress escalating terrorism in
the late 1960s and early 1970s, the way was open for
Peron's return.
On March 11, 1973, Argentina held general elections for
the first time in ten years. Peron was prevented from
running, but voters elected his stand-in, Dr. Hector
Campora, as President. Peron's followers also commanded
strong majorities in both houses of Congress. Campora
resigned in July 1973, paving the way for new elections.
Peron won a decisive victory and returned as President
in October 1973 with his third wife, Maria Estela Isabel
Martinez de Peron, as Vice President. During this
period, extremists on the left and right carried out
violent acts with a frequency that threatened public
order. The government resorted to a number of emergency
decrees, including the implementation of special
executive authority to deal with violence. This allowed
the government to imprison persons indefinitely without
charge.
Peron died on July 1, 1974. His wife succeeded him in
office, but a military coup removed her from office on
March 24, 1976, and the armed forces formally exercised
power through a junta composed of the three service
commanders until December 10, 1983. The armed forces
applied harsh measures against those they considered
extremists and many suspected of being their
sympathizers. While they were able to gradually restore
basic order, the human costs of what became known as "El
Proceso," or the "Dirty War," were high. Conservative
counts list between 10,000 and 30,000 persons as
"disappeared" during the 1976-83 period. Serious
economic problems, mounting charges of corruption,
public revulsion in the face of human rights abuses and,
finally, the country's 1982 defeat by the United Kingdom
in an unsuccessful attempt to seize the
Falklands/Malvinas Islands all combined to discredit the
Argentine military regime. The junta lifted bans on
political parties and gradually restored basic political
liberties.
Democracy returned to Argentina in 1983, with Raul
Alfonsin of the country's oldest political party, the
Radical Civic Union (UCR), winning the presidency in
elections that took place on October 30, 1983. He began
a six-year term of office on December 10, 1983. In 1985
and 1987, large turnouts for mid-term elections
demonstrated continued public support for a strong and
vigorous democratic system. The UCR-led government took
steps to resolve some of the nation's most pressing
problems, including accounting for those who disappeared
during military rule, establishing civilian control of
the armed forces, and consolidating democratic
institutions. However, failure to resolve endemic
economic problems and an inability to maintain public
confidence undermined the effectiveness of the Alfonsin
government, which left office six months early after
Justicialista Party (PJ) candidate Carlos Saul Menem won
the 1989 presidential elections.
President Menem imposed peso-dollar parity
(convertibility) in 1992 to break the back of
hyperinflation and adopted far-reaching market-based
policies. Menem's accomplishments included dismantling a
web of protectionist trade and business regulations and
reversing a half-century of statism by implementing an
ambitious privatization program. These reforms
contributed to significant increases in investment and
growth with stable prices through most of the 1990s.
Unfortunately, widespread corruption in the
administrations of President Menem and his successor
President Fernando De la Rua, who won election in 1999
at the head of a UCR-led coalition of center and
center-left parties known as the "Alianza", shook
confidence and weakened the recovery. Also, while
convertibility defeated inflation, its permanence
undermined Argentina's export competitiveness and
created chronic deficits in the current account of the
balance of payments, which were financed by massive
borrowing. The contagion effect of the Asian financial
crisis of 1998 precipitated an outflow of capital that
gradually mushroomed into a four-year depression that
culminated in a financial panic in November 2001. In
December 2001, amidst bloody riots, President De la Rua
resigned.
A legislative assembly on December 23, 2001, elected
Adolfo Rodriguez Saa (PJ) to serve as President and
called for general elections to choose a new president
within three months. Rodriguez Saa announced immediately
Argentina's default on $88 billion in debt (the largest
sovereign debt default in history), but expressed his
commitment to maintain the currency board and the peso's
1-to-1 peg to the dollar. Rodriguez Saa, however, was
unable to rally support from within his own party for
his temporary administration and this, combined with
renewed violence in the Federal Capital, led to his
resignation on December 30. Yet another legislative
assembly elected Eduardo Duhalde (PJ) President on
January 1, 2002 to complete the term of former President
De la Rua. Duhalde assumed office in the midst of a
widespread public rejection of the "political class" in
Argentina. Duhalde--differentiating himself from his
three predecessors--quickly abandoned the peso's
ten-year-old link with the dollar, a move that was
followed by a sharp currency depreciation and rising
inflation. In the face of increasing poverty and
continued social unrest, Duhalde moved to bolster the
government's social programs and to contain inflation.
He was able to stabilize the social situation, but
advanced presidential elections by six months in order
to pave the way for a president elected with a popular
mandate.
In the first round of the presidential election on April
27, 2003, former President Carlos Menem (PJ) won 24.3%
of the vote, Santa Cruz Governor Nestor Kirchner (PJ)
won 22%, followed by RECREAR candidate Ricardo Lopez
Murphy with 16.4% and Affirmation for an Egalitarian
Republic (ARI) candidate Elisa Carrio with 14.2%. Menem
withdrew from the May 25 runoff election after polls
showed overwhelming support for Kirchner in the second
round of elections. President Kirchner assumed the
presidency on May 25, 2003. He took office following the
immense social and economic upheaval stemming from the
financial crisis caused by a failed currency
convertibility regime. Despite widespread concern,
democracy and democratic institutions survived the
crisis, and Nestor Kirchner took firm control as
President. After taking office, Kirchner focused on
consolidating his political strength and alleviating
social problems. He pushed for changes in the Supreme
Court and military and undertook popular measures, such
as raising government salaries, pensions, and the
minimum wage. On October 23, 2005, President Kirchner,
bolstered by Argentina's rapid economic growth and
recovery from its 2001/2002 crisis, won a major victory
in the midterm legislative elections, giving him a
strengthened mandate and control of a legislative
majority in both the Senate and Chamber of Deputies.
Many experts considered President Kirchner to be the
most powerful Argentine president since democracy was
restored in 1983.
Although Kirchner enjoyed approval ratings of over 60%,
he announced in July 2007 that he would not seek
reelection and declared his wife, then-Senator Cristina
Fernández de Kirchner, to be a candidate to succeed him.
With the Peronist party under a trustee's control,
President Kirchner smoothed the way for Fernández de
Kirchner to compete under the Victory Front's (Frente
para la Victoria, or FpV) banner in general elections in
October. She won 45% of the vote and defeated her
closest competitor, Elisa Carrió of the Civic Coalition,
by 22.25 points. Thus, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
became the first Argentine woman elected to the
presidency. "Cristina," as Argentines often refer to
her, was sworn into office on December 10, 2007. |
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