BUENOS AIRES, Feb 15, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – Argentina’s former president Carlos
Menem, who marked his country with a neoliberal approach to the economy, died
in a Buenos Aires clinic on Sunday at the age of 90.
Menem had been in poor health and was hospitalised several times in recent
months for pneumonia.
Incumbent President Alberto Fernandez, who declared three days of national
mourning for Menem, tweeted his “deep regret” at the news of his passing and
extended condolences to Menem’s family.
Menem will be buried Monday in the Islamic cemetery in Buenos Aires next
to his son, Carlos Menem, Jr, who died in 1995 in a helicopter accident.
The former president’s wake began Sunday night at the Congress building,
where Vice President and Senate leader Cristina Kirchner received Menem’s
family and coffin, draped with the Argentine flag.
An emotional Fernandez and his wife, Fabiola Yanez, arrived an hour later
and offered their condolences to the family.
After that, the doors were opened to admit the hundreds of mourners lined
up outside.
Born in July 1930 into a family of Syrian immigrants, which earned him the
nickname “The Turk”, Menem prided himself on never having lost an election.
He served two terms as president, from 1989 to 1999. After withdrawing
from the race for a third term, he was elected to the Senate in 2005, and was
re-elected several times since.
Menem identified as a follower of Peronism, the leftist movement based on
the legacy of former president Juan Peron that today covers a broad spectrum
of political leanings in Argentina.
He pursued an aggressive privatization policy that many saw to be in
direct contrast to his stated political ideology.
– ‘Argentine miracle’ –
His name is synonymous with the “Argentine miracle”, a period when his
decision to fix the exchange rate of the peso to the US dollar brought
economic stability and an end to hyperinflation.
But this approach is widely considered to have led to the economic crisis
of 2001, when debt stood at $100 billion, the country defaulted on repayment,
the currency’s value plunged and unemployment skyrocketed.
By the end of Menem’s second term, the public deficit stood at $6 billion,
unemployment was at 14 percent and poverty affected a third of the
population. But things were to get worse.
Menem cultivated a playboy image, drove a Ferrari, played golf and was a
friend of the jet-set.
Despised by the middle class for his flamboyance, the aficionado of luxury
watches enjoyed both the admiration of the poor and the self-serving support
of the wealthy.
He was widely criticised for extending a presidential amnesty to leaders
of the military dictatorship of 1976-1983.
His presidency was tarnished by multiple accusations of corruption and
scandals. But while Menem was investigated in several cases, he never served
jail time.
In 2001 Menem was ordered held in pre-trial home detention for a case
involving arms smuggling to Croatia and Ecuador, but he was freed weeks later
under a Supreme Court ruling and ultimately let off.
Menem was also tried for covering up the 1994 attack on the Argentine
Mutual Israeli Association (AMIA) in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people,
but again was acquitted.
In 2018, he was sentenced to three years in prison for embezzlement, but
his parliamentary immunity protected him from going to prison.
Menem had three children from two marriages, the first with Zulema Yoma
and the second with former Chilean Miss Universe Cecilia Bolocco.
He fathered a fourth child, Carlos Nair, with a lover.
Menem’s daughter, Zulemita, said the former president would be buried next
to Carlos Menem Junior — who died in 1995 in a helicopter accident — in the
Islamic Cemetery in Buenos Aires.
Chile’s President Sebastian Pinera paid tribute to Menem on Twitter as a
“good friend of Chile.”