Darío Alessandro, one of the founders of …

Sociologist, political leader and diplomat Darío Pedro Alessandro has died at the age of 69, a victim of pancreatic cancer detected a few months ago. Alessandro was one of the founders of the Frente País Solidario (Frepaso) which burst into Argentine politics in the 1990s as a front that united several progressive and left forces to confront the neoliberal politics of Carlos Menem.

The leader who will be sacked at noon at the Parque Memorial Pilar, was elected national deputy for the first time in 1995, presided over the bench of Frepasista in the lower house and was re-elected in 1999. After the frustrated experience of La Alianza ( UCR-Frepaso) who led Fernando de la Rúa to government, Alessandro was one of the Peronist leaders of the dissolved Frepaso who joined the Front for Victory and supported the presidential candidacy of Néstor Kirchner. After the victory of the FpV, the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Rafael Bielsa, summoned him to the post of Undersecretary for Latin American Affairs of the Ministry of Relations, and in December 2004 he was appointed Ambassador to Cuba. and in 2008, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner appointed him. as Argentina’s representative in Peru, a position he held until December 2015.

Alessandro began studying sociology at the University of Buenos Aires in the 1970s and in 1971 he chaired the student center of his faculty. But the military dictatorship interrupted his studies. He was able to graduate as a sociologist with the return of democracy, where he met Carlos “Chacho” Alvarez with whom he would meet several years later in politics.

Initially dedicated to a family business in Santa Fe, Alessandro immersed himself fully in politics in 1990 as administrative secretary of the group of deputies of the Group of Eight, like the Peronist dissidents confronted with the privatizations of public enterprises and the forgiveness of the genocideurs of the civil-military dictatorship promoted by Menem. This rebel group was made up of his father Darío Alessandro (from whom he inherited his name), Germán Abdala, Carlos “Chacho” Álvarez, Luis Brunati, Juan Pablo Cafiero, Moisés Fontela, Franco Caviglia and José “Conde” Ramos.

In August 1994 he was one of the promoters of the foundation of Frepaso, which “Chacho” Alvarez promoted to broaden the political base of what was the Frente Grande and which united sectors of Peronism – among which the Movement Southerner of Fernando “Pino.” Solanas – of progressivism, socialism and the left. A year later he became a deputy and held a seat until 2003.

Alessandro’s political journey with Frepaso was winding. Aligned with Chacho Alvarez, he lost the internal coalition to the Peronist and former governor of Mendoza, José Octavio Bordón. It was Mendoza who later contested for the Frepaso the presidential course that De la Rúa won, in the alliance they built with the UCR. The unit succeeded in defeating Peronism in 1999, but political differences led to Alvarez’s resignation from the vice-presidency, and De la Rúa ended his term in December 2001, just two years after taking office. , in the midst of a social epidemic triggered by the economic crisis.

Later, aligned with the Front for Victory and after a brief stint as Undersecretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Néstor Kirchner appointed him Ambassador to Cuba. Task that Alessandro undertook to reverse the difficult diplomatic situation that the decision of the Argentine Embassy to grant asylum to Cuban doctor Hilda Molina with the Caribbean island has been unleashed. Due to his knowledge of Latin American reality, the CFK presidency appointed him later in 2008 as ambassador to Peru. The last public office Alessandro held.