Carlos Menem, a former Argentine president who achieved short-lived economic stability and forged close ties with the United States in the 1990s, even as he navigated scandal and enjoyed an often extravagant lifestyle, has died.
Argentine President Alberto Fernández confirmed the death of the 90-year-old former leader, who had been ill in recent weeks.
The elegant lawyer from one of Argentina’s poorest provinces, branded by critics as a playboy, led Argentina toward a free-market model that, at one point, was envied by neighbors and favored by investors. Menem’s achievements, however, coincided with rising unemployment, economic inequality, and foreign debt.
Menem was also extremely flexible as a politician, beginning his career as a self-proclaimed disciple of General Juan Domingo Perón, who founded the populist movement that bears his name and placed the economy largely under state control. Menem, who served two terms as president between 1989 and 1999, transformed the country, but in the opposite direction.
“I don’t know if I’m going to get the country out of its economic problems, but I’m sure I’m going to make a country more fun,” Menem once said. He enjoyed the company of celebrities, introducing the Rolling Stones and Madonna in Buenos Aires, and memorably ignored criticism after receiving a red Ferrari as a gift from an Italian businessman in 1990.
“It’s mine, mine and mine,” said Menem, a car racing fanatic, in front of television cameras. “Why would I donate it?”
Later, he reluctantly agreed to auction the car for $ 135,000, with the proceeds going to the state coffers.
The son of Syrian immigrants whose family owned a winery, Menem was a peasant, three times governor of the northwestern province of La Rioja, known for his shoulder-length hair and mutton sideburns when he rose to international fame.
He won the nomination of the Peronist Party and achieved victory in the 1989 presidential elections, taking advantage of the economic and social chaos in Argentina. The country was mired in 5,000% annual inflation and the poor looted supermarkets for food.
Under Menem, the economy registered strong growth, inflation fell to single digits and the peso, the national currency, enjoyed unprecedented stability as it was pegged to the US dollar. Long hair and sideburns disappeared and flashy clothing was replaced by imported hand-made suits.
The core of Menem’s recovery plan, devised by the energetic Harvard-educated Economy Minister Domingo Cavallo, was the withdrawal of the state from the economy.
Menem eliminated controls on prices and interest rates. It sold the state telephone company, airlines, racetracks, steel mills and the oil giant YPF, then the largest company in South America. It cut the state payroll and encouraged foreign investment. He cracked down on the once powerful unions that formed the backbone of the Peronist movement and were angered by state payroll cuts that eliminated jobs.
On foreign affairs, Menem withdrew Argentina from the Non-Aligned Movement, a Cold War-era structure that had supported independence from the United States and, even less, from the Soviet Union, and forged strong ties with Washington.
Argentine troops participated in the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq and joined the UN peacekeepers in Haiti and the former Yugoslavia.
During Menem’s tenure, Argentina was the scene of deadly attacks _ against the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 and a Jewish center in 1994. Argentina accused Iran of involvement; Iran denied it. Later, Menem was tried for the alleged cover-up of those responsible for the attack on the Jewish center, but was found not guilty at a trial in 2019.
As president, Menem prevailed in disputes with the Argentine military, whose 1976 coup led to the extrajudicial execution and disappearance of tens of thousands of people. He cut spending on the military and abolished the highly unpopular military conscription system.
He dismayed human rights groups by granting a pardon to former members of the military junta who were serving sentences of up to life in prison for crimes related to the disappearance of Argentine dissidents during the 1976-1983 dictatorship. The pardon was extended to ex-guerrillas in what Menem described as a process of national reconciliation.
Menem also renewed relations with Great Britain, severed after the 1982 invasion by the Argentine dictatorship of the British-controlled Malvinas Islands. The invasion ended with the defeat of Argentina in a 74-day war.
Menem was elected governor of La Rioja in 1973, but his first term was interrupted by the 1976 coup. The military rulers sent him to prison, along with other politicians. He was later confined for almost five years in a small village in the northern province of Formosa.
Various controversies followed Menem after his presidency. In 2001, he was detained for several months for alleged involvement in the sale of Argentine arms to Croatia and Ecuador in the 1990s, at a time of international embargoes on those countries. He was eventually found guilty in the case and sentenced in 2013 to seven years in prison, but was protected from going to jail because he had been elected senator in 2005 and enjoyed immunity. The case was dropped in 2017.
His colorful political career aside, Menem was a subject of fascination in his personal life. He dined with actors, models and pop stars, danced tango on television, played soccer, and posed for the covers of gossip magazines.
In 1966 he married the Argentine Zulema Yoma and they had two children: Carlos Facundo, who died at age 26 when the helicopter he was piloting crashed, and Zulema María Eva. The marriage dissolved amid a scandal that included the eviction in 1990 of the then-first lady from the presidential residence.
In 2001, at age 70, Menem married the Chilean television presenter and former Miss Universe Cecilia Bolocco, who was 36 years old. The couple had a son, Máximo. The couple divorced in 2011.
Menem also had a son with the teacher and later Peronist deputy Martha Meza, whom he met when he was confined in Formosa during the dictatorship. Carlos Nair Meza was 25 years old when Menem recognized him as his son.
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She is a freelance blogger, writer, and speaker, and writes for various entertainment magazines.