Who was Raúl Alfonsín?
Alfonsín was a lawyer who led the Radical Civic Union, or UCR, from 1981. In October 1983 he won 51.7 percent of the vote and became the first UCR candidate to beat a Peronist in a head-to-head presidential race. He took office on 10 December 1983, as military rule ended. His government created a commission under the writer Ernesto Sábato to document disappearances, and it brought the junta commanders to trial. He then faced barracks revolts, general strikes and runaway inflation. On 8 July 1989 he handed power to Carlos Menem about five months before his term ended. He died in 2009.
Political views
- His government set up CONADEP, chaired by Ernesto Sábato, whose report recorded 8,960 cases of people forcibly disappeared during the dictatorship.Source: cidob.org
- When the armed forces' own council upheld the army's anti-subversion campaign, his government turned to other courts to prosecute those responsible for human rights violations.Source: todo-argentina.net
- The junta leaders were convicted in 1985, and Jorge Videla and Emilio Massera received life sentences.Source: cidob.org
- After uprisings by the carapintada officers, Congress passed the Full Stop law in 1986 and the Due Obedience law in 1987, which limited prosecutions of lower-ranking officers.Source: cidob.org
- His Austral Plan of June 1985 introduced a new currency, froze prices and wages and cut public spending. It failed by 1986 and 1987 as inflation returned.Source: cidob.org
- The divorce law passed in June 1987, over strong opposition from the Catholic bishops.Source: cidob.org
- In 1984 he accepted the papal settlement of the Beagle Channel dispute with Chile, and a non-binding plebiscite backed it by more than 10 million votes to 2.5 million.Source: todo-argentina.net
- In 1985 he signed the Foz do Iguaçu declaration with Brazil's José Sarney, an early step toward the Mercosur trade bloc formed in 1991.Source: cidob.org
Legacy
Admirers credit Alfonsín with rebuilding civilian rule after a dictatorship that disappeared thousands of people, and with holding the generals to account in open court, which few governments in the region had done. Critics fault the Full Stop and Due Obedience laws, which shielded many officers from trial. Economists point to the failed Austral and Primavera plans and to the hyperinflation of 1989, which forced him out early. Within his own party, the 1993 Pact of Olivos with Menem is still disputed, since the UCR did badly in the 1994 convention vote.