Raúl Alfonsín: leader of a new stormy period – 31/03/2019

The validity in the memory of the figure of Raúl AlfonsínTen years after his death, even the validity of his tormented presidency is a miracle in Argentine politics, accustomed to devouring numbers, reputations, projects, ideas and intentions. The image of the former president is evoked today by the merit that during his administration they did not recognizewhile, at the same time, the mistakes that have condemned his government remain almost out of the recalls.

It is true that the catastrophes are more memorable and that Alfonsín had to resign in the middle of an impressive economic debacle, hyperinflation galloping, nothing new under the sun, and the first looting that has upset the social life of Argentina.

It is also true that the president of the time did not come to the government to save the economy, not even to create six years of immediate economic prosperity, but as a guarantee of a democracy in layers and in panties, haunted by the remnants of the still active military dictatorship, forced by the zeal of Peronism to perpetrate state terrorism, surrounded by a colossal external debt ($ 8 billion at the time of the coup d'etat). Military state of March 1976) and forty billion at the end of the dictatorship), stuck by the trade union movement, sometimes badociated with personalities of the dictatorship, and in an isolated Argentina on the international scale after the Falklands war.

What is evoked today by Alfonsín, and evoked as irreplaceable, is the democratic quality of its management, his efforts to maintain the principles and values ​​of democracy that he defended as a last resort, sometimes with a romantic and naive spirit, and based on mutual tolerance, on the dialogue with rival parties, that he has always taken for legitimate opponents and not enemies, and their obsession of moderation to enforce their institutional prerogatives.

It is impossible to imagine Alfonsin in Argentina today. To give just one example, this congress only since 1983 He played in memorable debates (this is not always the case of failure), because the external debt, or the one that preceded the adoption of the law on divorce, is far from the lawmakers "risers" who have obeyed in recent years to the whims of an autocratically inclined executive power, something unthinkable in the years of Alfonsin who has always been centered on the dialogue of his will of government and not in the generation of. antagonisms, like the "textbooks" of so-called "21st century socialism" send it as a recipe for "crunching liberal democracies".

If the quality of democracy in Argentina decreases, it should not be attributed this time to military coups, to tanks in the streets, to revolutionary statutes superior to the Constitution or to the rule of law. inactivity of political parties, but to action. the omission of a policy that took opponents as enemies, intimidated the free press, weakened the institutional defenses of democracy, including the courts, the intelligence services and the ethics offices, and transformed the parties policies in authoritarian labs.

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It is also impossible to imagine Alfonsin in Argentina today because of the social deterioration of the last thirty years, which followed the resignation of Alfonsin: public companies were sold, public corruption increased, as well as corruption deprivation, the violation between rich and poor, it has become much more important, the level of education and health has declined, transport services, buses and trains have become fragile, the nights have become fragile, the Crime has exploded and law enforcement has weakened. .

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The attempted coup d'etat Armed Forces Officer between 1987 and 1989, which weakens the Alfonsin government, turns into alliances and betrayals with these groups during the Menem and, during Kirchnerism, with the aim of including the army, by internal espionage, in the institutionalization of a political party and a government project.

Everything unthinkable in the years of Alfonsin now seems to enjoy a greater prestige than those who have run twice as much as him.

The emergence of institutional corruption also makes yesterday's Alfonsin unimaginable today. To name just a few examples:

-The creation of ghost companies to sell to the state of smocks or adulterated milk.

-The request for kickbacks to foreign companies to install meat machines.

– The first suitcases filled with money, perhaps the narco, which pbaded by Ezeiza under the eyes of a customs chief who did not speak Spanish but who was the husband of the secretary of the. Audiencias de la Rosada and the sister-in-law of the president.

The smuggling of arms to Europe and sister countries of the continent at war with other brother countries.

-The blasting of a military factory as a plan to erase evidence of this contraband.

-The request for bribes to a multinational to computerize the 535 branches of Banco Nación.

-The scandals in the PAMI.

-The payment of bonuses to officials with money from the budget for security.

– Judges linked to the government said in a briefcase by a minister.

– The attempted bribery of some senators for them to approve a law of trade union reform.

-The financial barrier to public savings.

-L "badbadination of five people near the Plaza de Mayo, twenty-eight throughout the country, during the suppression of the demonstrations that followed this" corralito ".

-The institutional debacle of the six presidents in one week.

-The drug in the airplanes of private companies.

– The dollar bags hung in the bathrooms of the ministries.

-Foreign agents who tried to enter the country.

-More bags with dollars.

-The buying dollars before a devaluation of former President Néstor Kirchner.

-The extra cost in public works.

-The triple crime of ephedrine.

-The vice president's attempt to get his hands on the parts printing business.

-L & # 39; s purchase of scrap metal as reliable trains.

-L "scam shared dreams under the protection of the state.

-Functions that spilled bags loaded with dollars and a rifle on a convent that was not so convent.

-The obligation to pay bribes to contractors, noted with fidelity from an entomologist by a driver and known today as "The cause of the notebooks".

Everything was unthinkable at the time of Alfonsin, who was facing a case of disqualifying corruption: the import of chickens from Hungary. A case that presented as a corruption and that it was not, in which it was stated that the chickens had arrived from Chernobyl and that he had served in the social lynching of the former president.

Alfonsín had an obsession: to give command in 1989 to another civilian president, consecrated in free elections. A "social phenomenon" that has not been reported in Argentina since, in 1928, Marcelo T. de Alvear Hipólito Yrigoyen.

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Alfonsín did it, in the hands of Carlos Menemand thus became the first civilian president in Argentine history to hand over command to another civilian president of another political party. In this Argentina, it was also unthinkable that for some reason a president would refuse to yield the symbolism of power to his legitimate successor, as did Cristina Fernández in 2015.

Also unthinkable in those years were the alarming poverty figures released by INDEC, 32%, which equates to 13 million Argentines, to another 1.7 million other poor people added over the last three years, and more than two million people in total destitution.

The enormous economic crises, the growing social discontent, the electoral decline of the main political parties also undermined the quality of democracy and favored the appearance of supposedly charismatic leaders.

Among the tributes dedicated today to the former president, there will be many people who ask what Alfonsin would have done these days.