Most likely, like almost everywhere else in the world, 90% of people voting for libertarians are actually various shades of fash and dollars to donuts would've cheered on such charming figures as Videla were they born 40 years earlier. Can't blame them, really, this was bound to happen at some point given the very special way Argentina is ed (a big part of which was too much economic interventionism, carried out with criminal stupidity at that, and I'm saying this as a sorta leftist) but it's still surprising to see Espert in double digits. It's amusing to see how popular is the Trot candidate here, but I prefer Lavagnaįrom purely anecdotal evidence (=looking at Twitter), people voting for Despertar are mostly the typical far-right demographic, that is men in their 20s and 30s frustrated with TEH SYSTEM and with Macri for being too moderate. I have forgotten nearly everything, but I think I compared Carlos Menem with Silvio Berlusconi: the 'politics of the spectacle' Once I got a little obsessed with the 2003 elections and wrote a long post in Spanish, with maps and stuff. He was clearly the greatest showman, better than Berusconi It reveals the man was ahead of his time. I love the Vamos Mebem video from the 2003 campaign. Menem had a big part in that disaster, but he was hardly the worst President regarding economic incompetence.Īnd it might just be the sideburns, but MenemMeme has always reminded me of Ivan Mládek.Īnd then there was, of course, ¡VAAAMO MEEENEM! You're correct in that lots of things were done wrong - corruption during privatizations, huge deficits, overheating economy, overvalued currency and the fact that money printer can't go brrr when you have a fixed exchange rate meant that all eventually blew up in the face of his well-meaning but hapless successor. Menem's presidency was the first time since early 70s that economy wasn't going down the drain, though that's more thanks to Domingo Cavallo and his Convertibility Plan (1 peso = 1 dollar).
The tied to the 2001 crisis part is a bit more complicated. I think the Presidential oath mentions santos evangelios to this day, though.
As President, he then pushed through a big constitutional reform that, among other things, removed that requirement. Indeed, both of his parents were Sunni Muslims from Syria but he converted to Christianity sometime "in his youth". And then there was, of course, ¡VAAAMO MEEENEM! Rather deservedly, it was the target of many parodies, though I have to admit it's pretty catchy. Oh, and his ads! They started out reasonably normal, but in 1999 he couldn't stand for reelection and decided to support the anointed successor, which led to the creation of one of the cringier examples of the 'Latin American campaign song probably paid for with embezzled public money' genre, Menem lo hizo ( MenemMeme did it). More like Carlos Meme I remember how Lumine's description of Menem as basically a caricature of Berlusconi helped get me to go down the rabbit hole of Argentine political history. His Presidency is widely criticized for being tied to the country’s economic troubles at the turn of the millennium. There was a guy named Carlos Menem who was President in the 90’s who famously converted to Catholicism as their constitution required it at time.