Argentina Considers a Return to Peronism
The results of the Argentine primaries, which plunged the markets into a panic, cast doubt on the ambitious reform agenda of the incumbent President, Mauricio Macri.Photograph by Ronaldo Schemidt / AFP/ Getty
Before returning to Argentina from exile, in 1973, Juan Perón famously said, “It is not that we were good, but those who came after us were so bad that they made us look good.” Perón died in office a year later, during his third Presidential term; he left behind a controversial legacy and a loosely populist movement, known as Peronism, that endures to this day. For nearly a century in Argentina, allegiance to Peronism has been an unwritten condition to completing a full term. Raúl Alfonsín, the first non-Peronist leader to govern the country since its return to democracy, in 1983, left office almost six months early, after surviving three military uprisings. The second, Fernando de la Rúa, resigned in 2001, halfway into his term, fleeing the Presidential palace aboard a white helicopter. The current President, Mauricio Macri, took office in 2015 and is now seeking reëlection, but, after he suffered a disastrous defeat in the primaries earlier this month, many have questioned whether he will prove an exception to the rule.