Freedom in the World 2004 - Argentina

Political Rights: 2
Civil Liberties: 2
Status: Partly Free
Population: 36,900,000
GNI/Capita: $6,940
Life Expectancy: 74
Religious Groups: Roman Catholic (92 percent), Protestant (2 percent), Jewish (2 percent), other (4 percent)
Ethnic Groups: White [mostly Spanish and Italian] (97 percent), other [including mestizo and Amerindian] (3 percent)
Capital: Buenos Aires

Ratings Change
Argentina's political rights and civil liberties ratings improved from 3 to 2, and its status from Partly Free to Free, due to the stabilization of the country's electoral democracy and important innovations in fighting corruption and ending military and police impunity.

Overview

Peronist governor Nestor Kirchner took office on May 25, 2003, as Argentina's sixth president in 18 months, after former chief executive Carlos Menem, whose tenure in office symbolized the corrupt excesses of the 1990s, abruptly withdrew from participating in a run-off election that Kirchner was widely favored to win. In his inaugural address, Kirchner promised that his government would act as "the great repairer of social inequities," a message greeted with hope by what was once Latin America's most developed country, which, for most of the past decade, endured the worst economic depression in its history.

The Argentine Republic was established after independence from Spain in 1816. Democratic rule was often interrupted by military coups. The end of Juan Peron's authoritarian regime in 1955 led to a series of right-wing military dictatorships that spawned left-wing and nationalist violence. Argentina returned to elected civilian rule in 1983, after seven years of vicious and mostly clandestine repression of leftist guerrillas and other dissidents in what is known as the "dirty war."

As a provincial governor, Carlos Menem, running an orthodox Peronist platform of nationalism and state intervention in the economy, won a six-year presidential term in 1989, amidst hyperinflation and food riots. As president, he implemented, mostly by decree, an economic liberalization program. He also won praise for firmly allying the country with U.S. foreign policy, particularly during the Gulf War with Iraq.

In the October 1997 elections, voter concerns about rampant corruption and unemployment resulted in the first nationwide defeat of Menem's Peronists, whose macroeconomic stabilization stalled as a result of international economic strife and his own government's growing corruption. Buenos Aires mayor and Radical Party leader Fernando De la Rua was chosen as the nominee of the center-left Alliance for presidential elections held October 24, 1999. Menem's long-running feud with his former vice president, Eduardo Duhalde, the hapless Peronist Party presidential nominee and governor of Buenos Aires province, sealed the latter's fate. Duhalde was defeated by De la Rua, 48.5 percent to 38 percent.

Weak, indecisive, and facing an opposition-controlled congress, De la Rua sought to cut spending, raise taxes, and push forward an anticorruption agenda and unpopular labor reforms. In October 2000, Vice President Carlos Alvarez resigned after De la Rua stonewalled calls for a serious investigation of the reported buying of congressional votes in order to pass labor legislation, a charge that appeared to receive first-hand corroboration in court testimony in 2003. In December 2000, a judge who himself was under investigation for "illegal enrichment," dropped the charges against the 11 senators named in the scandal.

Unable to halt the economic crisis, De la Rua called on Menem's former economy minister to restore credibility to the government's economic program and to stave off default on Argentina's $128 billion in public sector debt. Record unemployment, reduced and delayed wages to federal and provincial workers, and the closing of public schools created the kind of social mobilization and protest unseen for nearly a generation. In the October 2001 congressional by-elections, the Peronist Party bested the ruling Alliance coalition. However, citizen anger resulted in an unprecedented 21 percent of the votes being spoiled or nullified.

In December 2001, government efforts to stop a run on Argentina's banking system sparked widespread protests. Middle-class housewives – the bulwark of the government coalition's base – turned out in massive street protests. At the same time, riots and looting of supermarkets in poorer districts erupted, some of which appeared to have been organized by rivals within the opposition Peronists and by disaffected serving or former members of the Argentina's intelligence services. As the death toll reached 27, De la Rua resigned. He was replaced by an interim president, who himself was forced to quit less than a week later. On December 31, 2001, Duhalde, the 1999 Peronist standard-bearer, was selected as the new president. A decade-old law prohibiting the use of the military for internal security, a sizable reduction in military strength carried out by the Menem government, and continuing civilian abhorrence of the recent legacy of the dirty war, all helped keep the military from intervening in politics during the weeks-long transition.

The steep devaluation of the peso and a debilitating default on its $141 billion foreign debt left Argentina teetering on the brink of political and economic collapse throughout 2002, as the restrictive fiscal policies urged by the IMF and pursued by the government were not matched by increases in foreign investment. According to official government statistics, between October 2001 and May 2002, about 5.2 million people belonging to the middle class sank below the poverty line. An attempt by congress to impeach a highly politicized Supreme Court loyal to Menem was dropped, after international financial institutions said the move would endanger the country's access to foreign credit, and the legislature itself was the target of persistent accusations of bribery. Unemployment soared to levels unheard of since the founding of the republic, and violent crime spiraled out of control. Several of the country's police forces were roundly criticized both for not being able to stop the crime wave and for contributing to it through deep-seated corruption and frequent use of excessive force. Documents declassified by the U.S. State Department in 2002 and 2003 provided additional proof of former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger's "green light" for the military-led "dirty war."

Nestor Kirchner, a relatively unknown governor from the Patagonian region, succeeded in getting into a runoff in the first round of the April 2003 presidential election, winning 22 percent to Menem's 24.3 percent. Menem's high negative poll ratings convinced him to drop out of the contest.

Kirchner moved to purge the country's authoritarian military and police leadership. The new head of the Federal Police was fired a few months after the election in a corruption scandal – a first in the country's history – and replaced with a wellregarded reformer. Kirchner also took steps to remove justices from the highly politicized Supreme Court, considered the country's most corrupt institution, and signed a decree allowing the extradition of former military officials accused of human rights abuses. The populist Kirchner, a former sympathizer of leftist guerrillas active in the country three decades ago, also moved Argentina into closer alliances with Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez and Cuba's Fidel Castro, the world's longest-ruling dictator.

Kirchner's government, buoyed by a projected 7 percent economic growth rate, spent 2003 locked in tough negotiations with the IMF over its demands for sweeping concessions on the renegotiation of Argentina's foreign debt. However, by year's end, the government had yet to tackle needed reforms of an outdated tax system and laws that discouraged domestic and foreign investment. Organized picketers, some of whom appeared to have ties to former members of the intelligence services, showed their muscle by daily blocking key thoroughfares in Buenos Aires and other major metropolitan areas.

Political Rights and Civil Liberties

Citizens can change their government democratically. As amended in 1994, the 1853 constitution provides for a president elected for four years with the option of reelection to one term. Presidential candidates must win 45 percent of the vote to avoid a runoff. The legislature consists of the 257-member Chamber of Deputies elected for six years, with half the seats renewable every three years, and the 72-member Senate nominated by elected provincial legislatures for nine-year terms, with one-third of the seats renewable every three years. Two senators are directly elected in the autonomous Buenos Aires federal district.

The 2003 elections were considered to be free and fair, despite claims made by former chief executive Carlos Menem – and considered false by outside observers – that he was withdrawing from the presidential contest out of fear that he would be fraudulently denied the election. The subsequent government of Nestor Kirchner made anticorruption pledges a central theme, and Decree 1172/03 established the public's right to information and other transparency guarantees. However, there are no specific legal protections offered to government or private sector whistleblowers, who must seek redress in inadequate administrative or judicial remedies such as the Public Employees Law or the Work Contract Law.

The press, which was frequently under attack during Menem's presidency, enjoys broad credibility and influence, the latter due in part to the continued discredit of public institutions and the major political parties. In May 2003, the offices of the respected La Nacion daily newspaper, critical of the new government's warm relations with Cuba, were the object of a judicially sanctioned raid purportedly meant to probe allegations that some of the paper's shareholders were involved in tax evasion and money laundering.

The constitution guarantees freedom of religion. Nevertheless, the 250,000-strong Jewish community is a frequent target of anti-Semitic vandalism. Neo-Nazi organizations and other anti-Semitic groups, frequently tied to remnants of the oldline security services, remain active. The investigation of the 1994 car bombing of a Jewish community organization, which resulted in 85 deaths, has languished in part because of sloppy police work at the crime scene and the anti-Semitic views of members of the security forces in charge of investigating the crime. New revelations in 2003, suggesting that an investigating judge deliberately sidetracked the investigation by bribing key witnesses with funds from a secret slush fund, increased already strong suspicions that complicity in the attack went high into Menem's inner circle. Academic freedom is a cherished Argentine tradition and in 2003 was largely observed in practice.

The right to organize political parties, civic organizations, and labor unions is generally respected. Labor is dominated by Peronist unions. Union influence, however, has diminished dramatically in the past decade because of corruption scandals, internal divisions, and restrictions on public sector strikes decreed by Menem to pave the way for his privatization program.

Menem's authoritarian ways and manipulation of the judiciary resulted in the undermining of the country's separation of powers and the rule of law. The tenure of scores of incompetent and corrupt judges remains a grave problem. In June, President Nestor Kirchner took an unprecedented step toward establishing an independent judicial system by issuing a decree that limited the president's powers to appoint Supreme Court judges while widening the selection process to include the views of a number of nongovernmental organizations.

Public safety is a primary concern for Argentines, much of it fueled by a marked increase in illegal drug consumption that began during the Menem years. Within a decade, crime in Argentina has doubled, and in Buenos Aires, tripled, including a 50 percent increase in the murder rate in the past five years. In 2003, there were more than 10 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, a number equaled only during the 1970s, when the military dictatorship "disappeared" thousands.

In May 2002, the Argentine penal code was changed; the penalty for being convicted of killing a police officer became a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Police misconduct includes growing numbers of allegedly extrajudicial executions by law enforcement officers. The Buenos Aires provincial police have been involved in drug trafficking, extortion, and vice. Arbitrary arrests and abuse by police are rarely punished in civil courts owing to intimidation of witnesses and judges, particularly in Buenos Aires province. The torture of detainees in police custody in the province is widespread. Prison conditions are generally substandard throughout the country. On a positive note, in 2003, the government's law enforcement minister, Gustavo Beliz, publicly recognized the nexus between political corruption and police misconduct.

Argentina's estimated 700,000 to 1.5 million indigenous people are largely neglected. Approximately 70 percent of the country's rural indigenous communities lack title to their lands.

Women actively participate in politics in Argentina. However, domestic abuse remains a serious problem, and child prostitution is reported to be on the rise. In 2002, the city of Buenos Aires significantly expanded the legal rights of gay and lesbian couples.