Argentina’s Fresh Start
For the first time in decades, Argentine voters elected a president who is not a Peronist, a radical, or an army general. If a similar change of power had taken place in France or Brazil, the country’s citizens would be celebrating the birth of a new republic.
BUENOS AIRES – For the last 99 years, the presidency of Argentina has rotated between Peronists – Juan Domingo Perón and his populist followers – and reactionary generals. Every so often, centrists from the Radical Civic Union were voted into office, but their terms ended quickly, in resignations or coups.