Political Heirs of Juan and Evita : Once Again, Argentines Hear Call of the Peronists

BUENOS AIRES — A simply dressed, middle-aged woman puts her fingers to her lips, stretches out her hand and reverently rubs the plaque on Maria Eva Peron’s tomb. Near tears, the mourner makes the sign of the cross.

A short while later, a different sort of pilgrim arrives to show the tomb to friends. “Horrible, horrible woman, that Evita,” says the elegant visitor, her voice raw with scorn and anger. “Fortunately, she didn’t live longer.”

Those contrasting sentiments expressed at Eva Peron’s black marble mausoleum suggest the depth of feeling still engendered by the name Peron in Argentina, 36 years after Evita’s death and 14 years after the passing of her husband, Gen. Juan Domingo Peron.

More is at stake than nostalgia: There is every likelihood that the political heirs to the Perons will again take charge of Argentina next year. Carlos Saul Menem, the personable, populist governor of La Rioja, a small province in western Argentina, is leading in opinion polls for the May 14 presidential election and expects to become the first Peronist president elected in his own right who does not bear that family name.

Peronism’s detractors doubt the movement’s argument that it has shed the authoritarian, ultra-nationalistic and sometimes violent legacy that marked Peron’s presidency from 1946 to 1955 and--after 18 years in exile--his return to office from October, 1973, until his death nine months later.

But others say they are convinced that Peronism has undergone a profound transformation during the last five years, democratizing itself, fully joining Argentine political life and grappling with the problems of the late 20th Century.

As they study Menem and his entourage, Argentines remain as emotionally divided over Peronism as they were in the 1940s, after then-Col. Peron, from a base as minister of labor in a military government, engineered his rise to power with the promise of a worker-based revolution. He was shrewdly assisted by an attractive, aggressive radio personality, known then and now as Evita, who became his second wife.

Evita’s largess to the descamisados (shirtless ones) won her adoration, and Peron’s brand of Christian nationalism made him “El Conductor.” But the Perons’ enemies came to see only corruption, demagoguery and violence, including ruthless assaults on his opponents and, in mid-1955, a violent confrontation with the Roman Catholic Church that ended with Peron’s excommunication.

To its foes, Peronism remains mired in that past, built on personalism and state domination--and short on the realism needed to cope with complex modern problems. In a veiled reference to Menem, President Raul Alfonsin said in a recent speech that Latin America’s economic problems “give rise to ideological ghosts (and) messiahs who promise future paradises but who, when the time comes, always result in authoritarian regression.”

Alive or dead, in power or in exile, the Perons have exerted influence over Argentine politics for more than four decades. Juan Peron’s grave, in a commoners’ cemetery, remains a customary stop for Peronists every July 1, the anniversary of his death in 1974.

A year ago, thieves cut off the hands from his corpse and demanded ransom. None was paid, and the bones have not turned up.

“Peron’s persona is so great that they can take off his hands or do whatever they want, and he will always forgive. From heaven, he brings peace to the people,” Saul Ubaldini, secretary general of the General Confederation of Labor, said at this year’s annual graveside service.

Peron paid $100,000 to embalm Evita after she died of cancer in 1952 at age 33. She had been at the height of her extraordinary influence as a perceived benefactor and avenger of the poor, for which some wanted her canonized. In death, her body became a national fixation, a symbol for those who adored the Perons as saviors as much as for those who abhorred them as accused populist tyrants who ruined Argentina.

After Peron was deposed in a 1955 military coup, the new rulers, fearful of the talisman of Evita’s body, hid it in various offices and vaults in Argentina, then moved it to a secret grave in Italy. After her body was returned to Peron in 1971, he kept it upstairs in his house in exile in Spain.

The body, accompanied by guards, finally came home to Argentina on a chartered flight several months after Peron’s own death. It was eventually laid to rest in Recoleta Cemetery, in one of the city’s fanciest neighborhoods, Barrio Norte--to the horror of some well-heeled residents, who had despised her as much as she had derided them. (Once, in a speech to her followers, Evita offered to give torches to the poor to burn down Barrio Norte.)

Many Peronist homes and offices still give pride of place to portraits of Juan and Evita Peron as defenders of the working and middle classes against the oligarchs. But in more reflective moments now, many politicians play down the impact of its founders on today’s Peronist party, which is formally called the Justicialist Party. The name comes from justicialismo, a term coined by Peron from the Spanish word for justice to describe his movement’s ideology.

“Juan Peron is not an issue. Evita is not an issue in Argentina today,” said Juan Pablo Lohle, director of a Peronist think tank. “In the United States, people still think of Peron and Evita, but we are working to change that image.”

Lohle, 40, is part of the new generation of Peronists drawn not only from blue-collar families but also from large sectors of the white collar and professional elements of the middle class, those who see Peronism as an option that balances diverse social and economic needs. Lohle has been a strong advocate of Peronism’s renovacion (renovation), the internal reform of the party.

Although the party was often barred from taking part in elections during the years after Peron’s ouster, Peronism retained enormous influence in the nation’s political life. And despite considerable distrust of Peronism among important sectors of the armed forces, the full inclusion of the party in 1983’s elections, held after seven years of harsh military dictatorship, appeared to herald an end to the cycle of coups since 1930.

President Alfonsin’s party, the nearly century-old Radical Civic Union, solidly defeated the Peronists in 1983, bringing the party’s renovadores (renewers) to the forefront--and a new Peronism has been forged in the five years since.

In place of the back-room nomination of candidates, the party embraced open primaries and broadened participation through elected local bodies. That bruising process led to the political demise of many old-guard Peronists who were closely identified with Peron himself and who had opposed change.

Italo Luder, a former Peronist senator who lost to Alfonsin in 1983, said that since Peron’s death, “personalism has stopped being a factor” in the party. Especially since its presidential defeat five years ago, he said, the party has worked hard to expand the active participation of its major elements, including women and young people. That paid off in 1987, when Peronists won 16 of 22 governorships and the party regained the share of the vote it had polled in 1973, badly demoralizing Alfonsin and his party.

The renovadores were led by Buenos Aires provincial Gov. Antonio Cafiero, the party president, and Menem, the vice president. Cafiero--suave, articulate and silver-haired--had the support of the party apparatus and hierarchy in the July primary.

Menem, meanwhile, had virtually no party backing. Yet he traversed the country in his “Menemobile,” appealing directly to the 3-million-strong rank and file.

Relentlessly energetic, an amateur race car driver and a fiery speaker, Menem turned his oratory on the oligarchs and the party apparatus. The 53-year-old lawyer argued in effect that Cafiero was no different from Alfonsin, that the ordinary people would again lose out to the vested interests. Some liken Menem to the Pied Piper--and in fact, his posters exhort “Follow Me!”

Free to Serve All

Menem’s upset primary victory resurrected long-buried ghosts and prompted suggestions that the renewal had been undone. But Menem boasted that his maverick campaign left him free to serve all Argentines, and he has worked to heal the wounds from the primary. Cafiero is campaigning for Menem today, and the party’s coterie of economists, foreign policy experts and political operators have for the most part swung to the Menem phenomenon.

The return from voluntary exile last month of Maria Estela Peron, who was Peron’s third wife and his elected vice president--and who succeeded him in office when he died--briefly revived memories of guerrilla violence, labor strife, record inflation and social turmoil that marked her presidency until she was deposed by the armed forces in March, 1976. Menem and other Peronists initially avoided the third wife, known popularly as Isabelita, then warmed to her when she insisted that she had no interest in returning to politics.

At the same time, the economic failures of Alfonsin’s government militate in Menem’s favor. Under Alfonsin, the average family has experienced a drastic fall in buying power. Inflation soared to 27% for the month of August alone, with an annual rate well above 300%. A severe new anti-inflation plan cut that rate to 5.9% for November, but many believe it is too late for the Radical party’s candidate, Gov. Eduardo Cesar Angeloz of Cordoba province, to salvage the election for his party.

Angeloz, a colorless campaigner but a respected governor, asks voters to examine Menem’s performance in La Rioja. At a time when all parties agree that Argentina’s government is oversized, inefficient and the principal cause of inflation, Menem has increased his provincial public work force from 11,000 to 18,000. He points to a substantial increase in industrial output, but the province is swimming in debt. Alfonsin, who cannot seek reelection under the constitution, recently called Menem “the worst governor in Argentina.”

Menem’s standing has slipped in recent polls, and the possible impact of a recent military rebellion remains unclear. The Radicals have sought to link the Peronists to the leader of the rebellion, an army colonel described as a right-wing nationalist. Some privately, and probably inaccurately, assert that the military would not tolerate a Peronist victory.

Luis Corzo, a congressman and a confidant of Menem, said the party recognizes the need to privatize state-owned businesses, expand exports and modernize labor relations. Such ideas reflect a striking change for a party that grew from Peron’s protectionist, nationalist theories.

Asked about the Perons’ legacy, Corzo said, “What has endured is the doctrine of our party--profoundly humanist, Christian and turning on social justice, the belief that there cannot be democracy without social justice.”

He added: “Democracy is not only the right to walk through the streets, but it is jobs, health, housing, to be able to live with dignity, to which all people have a right. These are the things that have endured from the social doctrine created by Juan Peron.”