Argentine De la Rua bets on square appeal
By Stephen Brown
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters): "People say I'm boring."
A singularly unpromising confession of what everyone already knew turned out to be the campaign slogan that fired up Buenos Aires Mayor Fernando de la Rua's successful bid for the Argentine presidency.
Lampooned non-stop from newspaper cartoons to beer adverts, this risky strategy by the opposition Alliance appealed to the country's need for a bit of dullness after 10 years' flamboyant leadership by the outgoing Peronist President Carlos Menem.
After seven decades' excitement with 16 military regimes, populist upheaval under Juan and Eva Peron in the 1940s, human rights horrors in the 1970s, war with Britain in 1982 followed by democratic revival and hyperinflation, then market reforms in the 1990s, Argentina may be ready for a breather.
The 62-year-old mayor, long the clear favorite against Peronist Eduardo Duhalde, promises change without risk, a little sobriety after Menem's "pizza and champagne" style.
Everything about De la Rua, from his gray, groomed aspect to his cautious rhetoric, speaks of a lawyer on the right wing of the firmly centrist Radical Party, the century-old partner in the coalition forged in 1997 with the left-leaning Frepaso.
Compared with Gov. Duhalde and his tub-thumping traditional Peronism, or the free-market zeal of Domingo Cavallo, Menem's former economy minister turned third-placed candidate, De la Rua was definitely the least charismatic man on the hustings.
But the veteran Radical, who was born in the city of Cordoba and earned his lasting nickname "Chupete" (baby pacifier) when he got his first job in government at the tender age of 26, has groomed himself for the top job for decades.
"I have always dreamed of being president," he confided to foreign correspondents recently.
De la Rua ran for vice-president in 1973, aged just 36, but lost to Peron, back from exile, and his second wife Isabel.
In 1983, when the last dictatorship ended, he sought the Radical presidential candidacy but lost the primaries to Raul Alfonsin, a fiery speaker who tried the junta leaders but let the economy run riot and handed over early to Menem in 1989.
Election to the mayor's job in 1996 gave De la Rua a platform to seek the presidency again. The Alliance was born the next year and in 1998 he won primaries against charismatic former human rights campaigner Graciela Fernandez Meijide.
Hitting the campaign trail in the "Chupetemobile," De la Rua quickly proved a wooden performer in crowd scenes, burning himself on plebeian sausage sandwiches or sitting nervously on horse-drawn carts in working-class suburbs. In months the Alliance lost most of its 20-point poll lead.
But in May came the "boring" campaign and De la Rua, his image now in the hands of his 25-year-old son Antonio, looked unstoppable. He notched up a solid poll lead by appealing to people's desire for a change in presidential style.
"De la Rua really transmits calm," said pollster Marita Carballo of Gallup.
"We have had enough fun, interesting presidents," said political analyst Manuel Moray Araujo.
By election month, De la Rua was relaxed enough to make a fool of himself on TV game shows, wave balloons and hold babies, the atmosphere where Menem thrives. "I'm De la Rua," was his opening gag in a comic sketch with TV diva TV Susana Gimenez, watched by two million people.
But the balding, bulb-nosed mayor never lost sight of his "square" appeal. He ticked off Menem for using "suburban slang, coffee-shop language, inappropriate language" in the campaign and criticized his own supporters for saying Duhalde faced "a thrashing," saying that wasn't an appropriate term.
With rising crime in the capital high on the public's list of concerns, De la Rua aired campaign spots which gave a subliminal message of cracking down, showing him backed by gun-toting toughs in unmarked black combat uniforms.
On corruption, the blight of the Menem years, the Alliance and De la Rua in particular enjoy a clean image derived from his successful administration of Buenos Aires' town hall.
There were bribe scandals, one leading to the arrest of the city's Chief Public Notary and another involving De la Rua's two sons in an exam-rigging scandal. De la Rua said the latter was an extortion attempt involving state security agents.
Even so, pollsters say the father-of-three's main attribute for the public is his perceived honesty.
"He seems a decent man," said Radical historian Felix Luna. "Nobody imagines De la Rua putting his hand in the till, though you couldn't say the same for the people in his government."
On unemployment, by far the number One voter concern, he promised little but efficient government, handcuffed as he is to the eight-year-old fixed-currency system which Argentines see as the secret of Menem's success in securing economic stability.
With the business world clamoring to know how a center-left government would keep Argentina's finances under control, De la Rua tries to portray himself as a decisive leader like Menem: after three years as "mayor of a "megacity of three million inhabitants, I know how to take decisions," he told one rally.