ARGENTINA'S FORMER PRESIDENT KIRCHNER LOOKS TO

C O N F I D E N T I A L BUENOS AIRES 000196 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/19/2028 TAGS: PREL PGOV ELAB AR SUBJECT: ARGENTINA'S FORMER PRESIDENT KIRCHNER LOOKS TO RETAIN POLITICAL CONTROL REF: (A) 07 BUENOS AIRES 2372 (B) BUENOS AIRES 0014 Classified By: Ambassador Wayne for reasons 1.4 (b) & (d). ¶1. (C) Summary and introduction: Just two months out of office, Argentina's ex-president Nestor Kirchner is still very much in the limelight. Kirchner is moving to revive and take control of the Justicialist Party (PJ),commonly referred to as the Peronist Party in honor of its founder, Juan Domingo Peron. For most of the last 60 years, the Peronists have been the most powerful political movement in Argentina. The PJ retains the nation's strongest political structure, even though severe internal squabbling led a federal court in 2005 to put the party into a trusteeship. The court intervention essentially took the party off the market, even for the 2007 elections, but the PJ remains a potent brand name. Kirchner appears poised to take control of the party, providing him a powerful patronage vehicle. End summary. Life After the Presidency -------------- ¶2. (SBU) Before turning over the presidential sash to his wife, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (CFK),on December 10, Nestor Kirchner (NK) had been quoted saying facetiously that he planned to retire to a ""literary cafe."" No one, however, expected NK to spend his days sipping coffee, poring over newspapers and magazines, and NK has not. Shortly after his wife's inauguration, after a U.S. attorney quoted an allegation made by a defendant that CFK's presidential campaign had been the intended beneficiary of some intercepted cash from Venezuela, he used public appearances to lambaste the USG ""conspiracy"" against her and to demand the U.S. ""return the fugitive"" Antonini-Wilson (ref A). Weeks later, NK signed up for Hugo Chavez's ""bungle in the jungle"" (ref B). NK has also appeared at some organized labor events in an apparent attempt to sustain lines of communication with the labor camp headed by CGT leader Hugo Moyano in anticipation of wage negotiations involving labor, business, and the GOA. ¶3. (SBU) Having leased expensive office space in tony Puerto Madero, a short distance from the Casa Rosada presidential palace, NK has publicly turned his attention to a bid for winning the presidency of the PJ. Commonly referred to as the Peronist Party in honor of the PJ's founder, Juan Domingo Peron, the PJ was the most powerful political movement in Argentina for most of the last 60 years, alternating in power with the Radical Party (UCR) that earlier in the 20th century had begun the process of expanding suffrage and opening up the political process. Like its founder, the PJ has been tough to pin down ideologically, veering from left to right and back again, often with populist overtones and a pronounced authoritarian streak. Peronist Party Still a Stronghold -------------- ¶4. (SBU) The PJ remains the country's strongest political structure, although the party's presidency has been vacant since 2003. The last PJ convention in 2004 ended in a stalemate between two main factions: the Kirchneristas (supporting Kirchner) and the Duhaldistas (supporting former president and estranged Kirchner mentor Eduardo Duhalde). In September 2005, a federal judge appointed a trustee to take temporary control of the party and straighten out its internal procedures in order to resolve the conflict. The delay in the party's reorganization forced various Peronist presidential aspirants in 2007 to run under different banners. CFK, for example, ran as the candidate of the Victory Front (FpV),the coalition first cobbled together in 2003 to elect NK. Roberto Lavagna, who was once Kirchner's Minister of Economy, ran as presidential candidate under another banner while continuing to proclaim himself a Peronist, as did the governor of San Luis, Alberto Rodriguez Saa, another ""Peronist."" ¶5. (U) The National PJ Assembly is expected to meet on March 7 and call for internal elections on May 17. The PJ Assembly gathers about 900 delegates and can take decisions with a quorum of 33%. The province of Buenos Aires accounts for over 250 delegates, and therefore the negotiations among leaders of the Buenos Aires Provincial PJ Assembly are particularly tense in advance of their February 22 caucus. Kirchner's Prospects Look Good -------------- ¶6. (SBU) The only declared candidate challenging NK for the PJ presidency is Francisco de Narvaez, the wealthy businessman who lost his 2007 bid for the governorship of Buenos Aires province to NK's vice president, Daniel Scioli. It is also expected that a small faction led by San Luis Governor Alberto Rodriguez Saa and former president Carlos Menem will also seek to block Kirchner. The conventional wisdom is that Kirchner will win by acclamation. Indeed, he has mounted ""Operation Clamor"" to do just that, rounding up the endorsements of governors, mayors, legislators, labor leaders, and others. ¶7. (SBU) Kirchner's prospects were advanced recently by his re-enlistment of Roberto Lavagna, who had served as Minister of Economy for the first half of Kirchner's term in office but had harshly criticized the Kirchners during his 2007 bid for the presidency. Lavagna came in third place with almost 17% of the vote. His electoral vehicle was the Coalition for an Advanced Nation (UNA),a new political groupin that was largely a refuge for Radicals whose own party (UCR) was in disarray similar to the PJ's. ¶8. (SBU) The February 3 announcement that Kirchner had negotiated Lavagna's return to the PJ, presumably in exchange for a PJ vice-presidency, prompted cries of foul play from other opposition leaders, including Lavagna's erstwhile running mate, Gerardo Morales of the UCR. Elisa Carrio, who had come in second place behind CFK in the October election with 23% of the vote, accused Lavagna of having campaigned as an ""opposition"" candidate at the direction of Kirchner in an effort to divide the opposition vote. According to Carrio, Lavagna's ""return"" to the PJ proved he had actually never left the Kirchner camp. ¶9. (C) Most analysts, however, considered Kirchner's recruitment of Lavagna to be a master stroke, since it rendered the Radicals, the Civic Coalition, and other opposition figures flailing ineffectually, and, subsequent press stories suggest, it also may have won the acquiescence of Eduardo Duhalde to Kirchner's bid for the PJ presidency. Lavagna reportedly retains strong ties to former president Duhalde, widely considered to be the man who maneuvered to get Kirchner the presidency in 2003, only to be forced off the political stage by his mentee. Duhalde's praise for the Kirchner-Lavagna pact suggested he would not back challenges to Kirchner's expected coronation as head of the PJ. Other commentators have noted Kirchner's mastery at checking the power grabs of potential rivals. They claimed that Kirchner's agreement with Lavagna had contained the presumed ambitions of Buenos Aires Governor Daniel Scioli for the PJ vice-presidency, for example. Comment -------------- ¶10. (C) Although Peronism as an ideology is malleable and amorphous, there has been some speculation that Kirchner's real agenda is to displace Peron in the affections and allegiances of Argentina's working class. Kirchner does not have Peron's transcendent charisma, he evinces many of the same masterful political instincts. Kirchner's expected election by acclamation to the presidency of the Justicialist Party will provide him a powerful vehicle for keeping his wife's critics and rivals at bay, and for shaping the Argentine political landscape for years to come. WAYNE