Menem, Carlos Saúl

(1930– )

   Peronist politician and president of Argentina (1989–1999). Menem’s election to the presidency on 14 May 1989 marked the first time since 1928 that one Argentine civilian president succeeded another. In 1995 he won a second term in office, the constitution having been revised the previous year to allow two consecutive presidential terms and to reduce the term from six years to four. Carlos Saúl Menem was born on 2 July 1930 in Anillaco in La Rioja province. His parents were Syrian immigrants, and he and his three brothers were raised as Sunni Muslims, though he would later convert to Roman Catholicism. As a college student he became involved in politics, and in 1955 founded the Juventud Peronista, a Peronist youth group. In 1956 he was jailed briefly for supporting an effort to bring back Juan Perón. After earning a law degree from the University of Córdoba in 1958, he practiced law in La Rioja, the provincial capital, and served as advisor to the Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT, General Labor Federation), a Peronist stronghold. He was elected governor of La Rioja province in 1973 (the year Juan Perón returned), an office he would win again in 1983 and 1987. After the 1976 military coup that removed Isabel Perón from power, Menem was imprisoned until 1978, and then kept under house arrest until 1982.

   In the presidential election of 1989, Menem, heading a Peronist coalition, defeated Eduardo Angeloz, representing the Unión Cívica Radical (UCR, Radical Civic Union). Although Menem was scheduled to take office on 10 December, the incumbent president Raúl Alfonsín, facing a severe economic crisis, resigned five months before the end of his six-year term, and Menem assumed the presidency on 8 July. Shortly after taking office, he floated the idea of granting a pardon or an amnesty for military officers and guerrillas. Although public opinion polls indicated that a majority of Argentines were opposed to any show of mercy toward the armed forces, on 8 October 1989 Menem pardoned 277 persons, including 64 guerrillas. Among those remaining in prison, however, were the three commanders of the first junta (Jorge Rafael Videla, Emilio Massera, and Orlando Ramón Agosti) and the Montonero leader Mario Firmenich. Despite the pardons, lower-ranking officers, who had rebelled three times under Alfonsín, remained restive. One of the pardoned officers was Colonel Mohammed Alí Seineldín, who had been jailed for leading a rebellion in 1988. Rejecting the army’s effort to discipline him for his role in that operation, the charismatic Seineldín urged his many followers to stage still another rebellion, aimed at overthrowing the government. Menem had anticipated the action, however, and had shored up support among loyalists in the army by promising a second round of pardons and ordering a pay raise for officers. The coup of 3 December 1990 was put down the same day. By the end of December, Menem pardoned the remaining officers and guerrilla leaders.

   See also Carapintadas.