The civic courage of Alfonsín grows with the passage of years

In the winter of 2000, on the eve of the turn of the millennium, I met former President Alfonsin at a diplomatic reception. I told him that I was finishing writing an article about Argentina, in which I had to face his years of presidency "Be merciful, Maria," he said, crossing his hands with a smile that his photographs reflected so often. Undoubtedly, Alfonsin, like any professional politician, cared about the place he would occupy in history, of this task of high civic responsibility largely incumbent on historians.

Raúl Ricardo Alfonsín (1927-2009) presided over the Republic from December 1983 to July 1989. Unable to fully respect his constitutional mandate, he presided over clean elections won by the opposition party. He gave the command in advance in order to avoid further damage in times of hyperinflation, social violence and threats from disgruntled servicemen.

In reality, its management began in dramatic conditions: the post-war Falklands, the "dirty war" and the end of "Sweet Silver". For that he had to find a balance between the desire and the possible, and although he sinned because he tried to follow the path imagined, especially on the economic level, he was able to rectify (Austral and Primavera plans).

Remembering the difficulties encountered, particularly the social and economic structure of the country, and the myths that feed it, would in my opinion be a healthy exercise for current leaders and their privileged advisers. Winning elections in an unfavorable economic climate and engaging the state in actions that ensure general well-being, without sufficient resources, remains the dilemma to be solved.

Alfonsin failed to put forward one of his slogans of the election campaign: "With democracy, he is healed, educated and eaten". However, he taught with the word and example of "living in democracy", an apprenticeship that the Argentines owe us, perhaps since the beginning of our independent history. It meant dialogue, seeking consensus, not eliminating the other (physically or by marginalization), invoking, not giving in to the temptation to be the owner of the truth.

He belonged to a generation of politicians already extinguished, who have moved from the margins to the center of action and who have worked for the common good without seeking either the economic benefit or the benefits of power. Educated to austerity, he remained all his life. Radical at the base, he first respected the leadership of Buenos Aires' intransigence and Ricardo Balbín's leadership, but he showed permeability to expand his field of action. He understood the contemporary world in which social democracy replaced right-wing and left-wing extremism with more reasonable forms of political coexistence. Hence the good relations that he had during his presidency with the French and Spanish governments and the change of direction in relations with Brazil, which was fully considered a partner country and friend, no secret about nuclear issues or badumptions. of conflict. Accepting papal mediation on the Beagle issue and accompanying it with the majority was one of his first successes.

His name began to be noticed at the beginning of the decade of 1970, because it managed to attenuate the violence of the language and the political methods used without neglecting the social message. He was able to reach a young person who was tempted by the discourse on violence, to whom he proposed another path.. On April 2, 1982, while Argentine politicians almost without exception accompanied the de facto government in its attempt to recover the Malvinas Islands, Alfonsín was not fooled by patriotic speech. In this way, he grew up in the opinion and won supporters to renew the former party of Alem and Yrigoyen. The new and old began to fill their calls, from the first in the modest scenario of the Argentine Federation of Box, just after the war, to the giant conurbano in the campaign of 83, and to the historical closures of the federal capital of Rosario.

However, a few months would suffice for Alfonsin to understand that winning the elections with 52% of the votes did not guarantee the stability or the plans for reform of a government. The Senate failure of the labor reform, projected according to the parameters defined by Arturo Illia, years ago, indicated that the complex balance of powers of the National Constitution operates in a conservative way, in this case to defend the unions, whose conductions, 35 years later, they continue to resist attempts at successive reforms and shy.

Ten years later, Elapsed time makes Alfonsin's civic courage ever more valuable to deal with the consequences of state repression, in the midst of an election campaign, confirming that he would not validate the de facto government's self-government law; then, the initiative to bring the military junta to justice, when the armed forces maintained their power and, finally, on Easter Sunday 1987, when he flew away with Minister Horacio Jaunarena. and the Speaker of the House. The military must be face to face with the rebels, in order to avoid the bloodbath – and to understand the reasons for the other.

All this, in a brief synthesis, appears as a characteristic of the portrait of a man of courage and vocation of service who presided over our nation.