ARGENTINA: THE UCR AT A CROSSROADS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BUENOS AIRES 002891

SIPDIS

STATE FOR WHA/BSC AND INR/RA,
NSC FOR TOM SHANNON AND MIKE DEMPSEY,
SOUTHCOM FOR POLAD

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/07/2014
TAGS: PGOV PREL AR
SUBJECT: ARGENTINA: THE UCR AT A CROSSROADS

REF: A. BUENOS AIRES 0203


B. BUENOS AIRES 4321

C. BUENOS AIRES 4367

Classified By: Ambassador Lino Gutierrez for Reasons 1.4 (B) and (D)


1. (U) Summary: The election of Adolfo Stubrin as president
of the national Radical Civil Union (UCR) convention provides
the UCR the opportunity to reorganize the party and begin to
build on its grass-roots strength to serve as a viable
opposition to the ruling Peronist Party (PJ). Stubrin's
first act has been to organize the opposition in the National
Congress to oppose the GOA's attempts to grant special powers
to Cabinet Chief, Alberto Fernandez. Stubrin and UCR
National Committee head, Angel Rozas, need to build up the
party's provincial base, make alliances with other opposition
groups, promote greater transparency in the party's internal
decision-making, and heal the divisions within the party in
order to revive the UCR to its traditional place as a strong
political force in Argentina. End Summary.


2. (U) On September 24, Adolfo Stubrin was elected to head
the UCR convention, defeating former President Alfonsin's
choice, Luis Caceres. Stubrin's candidacy was backed by
provincial elites and members of the National Committee that
want a break with the old Alfonsin leadership and a more
confrontational stance taken toward President Nestor
Kirchner's administration. The party is seeking to recover
from the dismal two percent of the vote it received in the
2003 presidential elections, following a December 2002 party
primary that was tarnished with accusations of fraud. The
break with the old guard was by no means complete, as Rozas,
who was a central figure in the 2002 primary disaster,
remains in his position. However, the election of Stubrin
provided some badly needed new blood into the party
leadership at a time when the party has been struggling to
deal with the dominance of the PJ in national politics. The
UCR has the most Congressional seats of any party after the
PJ, with 44 Deputies and 14 Senators. The party retains
significant strength in many of the provinces and is the only
opposition party with a grass-roots party organization
throughout the country. The UCR also holds the governorships
in Chaco, Catamarca, Rio Negro, and Mendoza and UCR candidate
Gerardo Zamora leads in the polls for the February 2005
gubernatorial election in Santiago del Estero. Stubrin is
seeking to build on this base to revitalize the party. The
movement to replace the Ley de Lemas system with primaries in
key provinces, such as Santa Fe, also provides an opportunity
for the UCR to make inroads into traditional PJ strongholds.
(Note: The Ley de Lemas, still utilized in several provinces,
allows parties to run multiple candidates in elections, with
seats going to the party, rather than the candidate, who
receives the most votes. In practice, this system has been
used by the PJ in provinces, like Santa Fe, to shut
opposition parties out of power. For example, in the 2003
Santa Fe election for governor, Peronist Jorge Obeid was
declared the winner, even though he only received 21 percent
of the vote, while front-running Socialist candidate, Hermes
Binner, received 36 percent of the vote. Obeid was elected
because the sum of the Peronists candidates totaled 43
percent, while the sum of the Socialist candidates was only
38 percent.)


3. (U) Stubrin's first act as party congress head was to
call for a unified opposition stand against the GOA's bid to
give Cabinet Chief Fernandez powers, or "superpoderes", over
the 2005 budget that are normally the exclusive right of the
Congress. This effort is made more complicated because the
last time these powers were invoked it was at the behest of
UCR President de la Rua's government for then Minister of the
Economy, Domingo Cavallo. Stubrin called for a meeting on
Tuesday, October 12th of all opposition parties to organize a
united front against the GOA's proposal. The call was met by
opposition from the Alfonsin camp within the UCR, showing how
far the party needs to go in order to achieve unity.
However, Stubrin's initial efforts to oppose the GOA's
request for "superpoderes" have been received favorably by
other opposition leaders outside of the UCR. There is talk
of an alliance between Recrear leader Ricardo Lopez Murphy
and the UCR. Affirmation for an Egalitarian Republic (ARI)
leader Elisa Carrio says that she will not enter into an
alliance with the UCR or any other party, although she
supports Stubrin's efforts to oppose the granting of
"superpoderes" to Fernandez.


4. (C) Former UCR Deputy Jesus Rodriguez recently told
Poloff that the UCR's two top goals should be the restoration
of transparency in the internal decision-making of the party
and the formation of solid alliances with other opposition
groups. Rodriguez worked tirelessly with other UCR members
to ensure that Stubrin was elected and felt his election
represented a new beginning for the party. Leading pollster
Manuel Mora y Araujo recently remarked to Poloff that the UCR
needed to purge all of its top leadership in order to be able
to move beyond the stigma of the failed de la Rua
administration and the 2002 primary debacle. (Comment: Some
POL contacts continue to believe unproven allegations that
Rozas was involved in vote rigging in the 2002 UCR primary,
arguing that Rozas therefore needs to resign in order for the
party to make a complete break with its troubled past. When
fraud charges were first raised in the press after the
primary elections, Rozas appealed to the electoral council
for new elections in the disputed provinces in order to clear
his name. When the request for new elections was denied, he
resigned his leadership post in the party and only took it up
again after new elections were completed in February 2003.
See Reftels for more background.) Dr. Ruben Octavio Villan,
who works for Deputy Marcelo Rafael Godoy, both formerly of
the UCR, reported to Poloff that he was not optimistic about
the long-term prospects of the UCR's attempts at alliances.
Villan argued that the opposition groups are competing for
the same minority share of the votes and are plagued with
leaders with sizable egos, who are not capable of sharing the
limelight.

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COMMENT
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5. (C) The UCR is the only party with sufficient ground
strength to organize a viable opposition to the PJ. The
election of Stubrin and his recent attempts to build a united
opposition front against the Casa Rosada's "superpoderes"
proposal is a good start toward that end. The party
continues to suffer from infighting between those aligned
with Stubrin and Rozas and the Alfonsin wing of the party.
Fortunately, the new party leadership has a year to work out
the differences within the party in order to prepare for the
next great challenge in the 2005 elections. The UCR is
Argentina's oldest political party and has recovered from
several crushing blows in the past, such as the 1930 military
overthrow of Radical President Hipolito Yrigoyen and
Alfonsin's forced early departure from office in 1989, to
subsequently regain the reigns of leadership in Argentina.
The next year will determine whether the UCR can once again
rise from the ashes, or remain a divided, minor party.

GUTIERREZ