MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina mired by populism and lack of leaders' elites

French political scientist Alain Touraine

President Nestor Kirchner administration is unfailingly heading towards populism and the accumulation of so much power in two or three people plus having the Executive control the other branches of government is highly negative for Argentina, said French political scientist Alain Touraine.

However that is not all, according to Touraine a distinguished academic and expert in Latinamerican affairs "Argentina seems unable to generate political and business elites to lead the country and run the bureaucracy and the private business sector". "The future rests in having elites of leaders and thinkers; Brazil has them, so has Chile, Mexico but Argentina does not have elites capable of addressing and leading the changes and this is essential", underlined Mr. Touraine interviewed by the Argentine press in Paris. Touraine added that regardless whose ruling Argentina, be it or not Mr Kirchner, "the current situation can only be described as negative. If efforts are in concentrating power it's difficult to work for the formation of elites, and this problem was not invented by Mr. Kirchner. Argentina has always lived with the problem of Peronism, which does not help produce elites". The Argentine press interviewed Mr. Touraine because at one time, when Argentina was struggling with the International Monetary Fund and international banks, the Kirchner couple, particularly the First Lady was an admirer of the French political scientist with whom she liked to talk and exchange ideas for hours. However when Mr Touraine begun stating that the Kirchner administration was heading to populism, apparently he was erased from the list of "French friends" as happened this week when Mrs Kirchner visited Paris to meet French leaders and sign a UN convention which declares the disappearance of people a crime against humanity. Mr Touraine insisted with the fact that the "real problem with Argentina is populism". Although Argentina didn't manage to make it to the group of NIC, Newly Industrialized Countries, that emerged in the last decades, "even when all these countries are now facing reconversion problems", Argentina and "its primitive economy" (commodities exporter) have an excellent chance to readapt to the new challenges, but the populist temptation is too strong. "Personalization of power, accumulation of power in three or four people and having the Executive control all three branches of government creates a negative and grave situation". The Argentine press recalls that in early 2006 Mr. Touraine and Mrs Kirchner met in Brasilia and at the time the French academic publicly said that "Kirchner has pulled Argentina out of the quicksand", and continues to think so. But "following the financial cleanup, your husband adopted a nationalist and distributive policy, very much in the Peronist style, forgetting long term plans and personalizing power to an extreme". "I'm surprised she didn't contact me. I would have loved to talk to Cristina. I even had time because one of my appointments was cancelled", replied Touraine when informed that the First Lady was visiting Paris for a week. Actually Argentina's First Lady shared lunch with three other distinguished French intellectuals, probably friendlier, historian Alain Rouquié, publicist Jacques Séguéla and Le Monde editor, Bernard Cassen. She also made it a point in several of her speeches to underline the difference between populism, --endless squandering of resources--, and the current "Progressive Peronism" (of her husband) based on fiscal equilibrium.