By JOHN J. METZLER
BUENOS AIRES — Nobody strolling the streets or riding along the massive tree-lined avenues of this amazing city can fail to be impressed by the size, vitality, and the pulse of the Argentine capital. Moreover so much of Argentina conjures the word—Potential. Its Size, Resources, and Traditions. Yet modern Buenos Aires, evokes a strong nostalgia too, not so much of impressive architecture from a bygone age, but of something missing in the modern era where inflation, massive government debt, and anemic economic growth have endured as an albatross to this once thriving country of forty-four million people.
Now as Argentina prepares for crucial presidential elections in October, this land of huge potential but striking contradictions, will choose between polarizing political candidates.
Wracked by a turbulent and troubling history, the past century has witnessed Argentina evolve from one of the world’s most promising and prosperous places in the early 1900’s to a country falling below expectations today.
“Argentina started the twentieth century as one of the richest ten countries in the world. For a while its economic position in the world was comparable to that of, say, Germany today. It had a per capita income much higher than that of Japan and Italy and comparable to that of France,” writes Vito Tanzi a former IMF official and noted author on the Argentine economy.
Argentina’s GDP per capita income according to the Word Bank currently stands at $13,400, relatively high for Latin America but far below neighboring Chile or for that matter European lands from where it once lured immigrants such as Italy $36,000 and Spain $32,000.
A tempestuous political scene cursed by bouts of poor governance, military rule, and a fractious democracy have seen Argentina’s middle class standing decline compared to many countries.
Yet the central and enduring political malady affecting Argentina remains the rule and ensuring legacy of Col. Juan Peron and especially his wife Evita who are viewed like a cult of cherished history, trade union solidarity, and near religious veneration.
Though Peron’s rule ended in the mid-1950s and the popular Evita died in 1952, the high octane populism and state socialism of the Peronista era endures, serving as a weighty political millstone to the system. The tenure of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, aka CFK, between 2007 and 2015 reinforced the undercurrent of powerful political trade unions and strident left-wing populism.
In 2015, Argentines elected Mauricio Macri the popular mayor of Buenos Aires as President and enacted long overdue free market policies to revive a moribund economy and reestablish closer ties to the USA. Macri’s government, for example, has been playing a key regional role in supporting the democratic opposition in Venezuela.
Macri is facing presidential elections later this year but with a possible challenge from the discredited Christina Kirchner who remains embroiled in a number of serious criminal allegations relating to her presidency.
Though the economy expanded initially, Mauricio Macri faces strong economic headwinds. To support the battered Peso currency, the government borrowed a further $56 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last year. GDP for 2017 grew by 2.9 percent but in 2018 contracted by 2.2 percent. Inflation last year rose to 48 percent. Argentina’s recession is expected to continue throughout 2019, according to IMF.
A suffocating bureaucracy has hampered economic efficiency. Nonetheless Argentina ranks 83 out of 100 points in the annual Freedom House standing of political rights and civil liberties. Moreover there’s a free and independent media.
Traditionally strong trade with the USA has now been surpassed by China. Massive Chinese infrastructural investment in hydroelectric dams in Patagonia and sweeping agricultural imports have made Beijing a close commercial partner of Argentina. As a major food producer, Argentina depends on exports.
Despite its economic woes, Argentines exhibit a strong sense of nationalism; street names for Generals, Colonels and Captains abound. There’s a powerful aura of history and national identity with flags everywhere. A certain nostalgia pervades society too.
Nonetheless the staunchly secular society which idolizes soccer stars remains largely ambivalent concerning native son Jorge Mario Bergoglio who served as archbishop of Buenos Aires and subsequently cardinal before his elevation as Pope Francis. Few pictures of the Pontiff are seen except in churches in this nominally Catholic land. Interestingly Pope Francis has not returned home during his six-year Pontificate.
Argentine politics are a bit like the national dance the Tango: intense mood swings, seductive, and melancholic. Nonetheless, the all-encompassing state stands as the silent chaperone to the national polity and politicians.
So what’s Argentina’s next move? Elections will decide whether the path of free markets or the lure of socialism capture the heart of this capricious nation.
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(John J. Metzler is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He is the author of Divided Dynamism: The Diplomacy of Separated Nations: Germany, Korea, China.)
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