Argentina's Peronist rule is nearing end of the line

Eduardo Duhalde, presidential candidate for Argentina's ruling Peronist party, closed his campaign in Buenos Aires at midnight last Saturday with the help of giant video screens, flaming torches and a spectacular fireworks display, which gave the event the feel of a rock concert.

The rally was carefully organised to repeat one of the country's defining political moments, which occurred on the same day in 1945, when army colonel Juan Peron emerged from house arrest and spoke to an estimated one million workers, launching a political movement which has dominated Argentinian politics until today.

At midnight last week, however, the rented buses lined four deep for a mile along the Plaza de Mayo avenue and claims by participants that they received US$20 for turning up at the rally punctured the Peronist myth and reminded voters that this presidential election campaign is more about high-tech theatre than grass-roots mobilisation.

Argentina's 24 million voters go to the polls tomorrow to elect a new president, half a dozen state governors, half the seats in congress and thousands of local council posts.

The vote means much more than just a change of government, as this election marks the end of President Carlos Menem's 10-year rule, in which he transformed the country, privatising everything from the nation's telephone company to public parks, which are now officially owned by private companies which pay for their upkeep.

Fernando de la Rua is the presidential candidate for the centre-left opposition Alliance, his sombre, austere image winning him considerable respect in a country weary of Menem's frivolous showmanship.

The outgoing president raced his Ferrari through the countryside and surrounded himself with millionaires, models and movie stars, hoping the aura of success would rub off on him.

THE battle for the presidency is considered a foregone conclusion, as de la Rua, mayor of Buenos Aires, has an overwhelming lead over his nearest rival Duhalde. To win in the first round, a candidate must receive at least 45 per cent, or 40 per cent with a margin of 10 percentage points over the second-place finisher.

Duhalde's chief opponent is supposedly de la Rua but the Peronist candidate has faced a more serious obstacle - his own party colleague, President Menem, who has begun campaigning for re-election in 2003.

Menem would sooner lead his party into opposition than be supplanted in power by Duhalde. The two friends fell out when Duhalde successfully mobilised support to squash Menem's re-election hopes.

Alliance candidate Fernando de la Rua belongs to the centre-right Radical Civic Union Party (UCR), which teamed up with Frepaso, the centre-left Front for a Country of Solidarity.

The Alliance candidate for governor of Buenos Aires Province, a wealthy industrial belt with nine million voters, is Frepaso leader Graciela Fernandez Meijide, who faces stiff opposition from Peronist candidate and current vice-president Carlos Ruckauf.

The campaign turned ugly on Thursday, when Ruckauf accused Meijide of being an "anti-Christian atheist and abortionist", sparking a furious row. The abortion issue cropped up before in this campaign, when it was revealed that President Menem, a strident anti-abortion spokesman, helped his former wife Zulema terminate a pregnancy 30 years ago.

Peronist hopeful Duhalde has upped his campaign promises in direct proportion to declining vote preferences, which show him trailing de la Rua by 11 to 19 percentage points.

In July he commented that he might seek a moratorium on foreign debt repayments, causing the stock market to fall by 9 per cent in one day. "If we really put our minds to creating employment," Duhalde told an assembly of union leaders, "we'll be importing labour in four years." At his closing rally, he promised to raise pensions by 50 per cent.

ALL election candidates agree that the principal problems facing the country are chronic insecurity and rising unemployment. There were two major bank robberies this week and two small-time criminals were shot dead late on Thursday evening, as muggings and burglaries rise to record levels.

Former police chief Luis Patti, candidate for governor in Buenos Aires Province, has campaigned on the slogan "A bullet for every criminal", earning him 14 per cent of voter preferences.

The prevailing economic recession, with 16 per cent unemployment, has led to violent disturbances in recent months. In Corrientes, northern Argentina, police fired rubber bullets at a crowd of 5,000 state employees demanding overdue salaries. Every sector of the economy is in crisis, with workers frequently given a choice of accepting a pay cut or losing their job.

Hundreds of schoolteachers were blocked by riot police last month when they attempted to set up a protest camp outside the presidential offices, while 10,000 farmers marched to demand tax cuts and access to credit.

When Carlos Menem first ran for president in 1989, he promised to defend workers and protect native industry "If I had said anything else," he said afterwards, "I would have had every worker in the country against me."

Argentinian law obliges all citizens to vote or face a large fine, but opinion polls predict a sizeable blank vote, a growing expression of voter dissatisfaction.

Some dissident voters have set up KM 501, a group which plans to travel 501 km from Buenos Aires on election day, taking advantage of an election law which says that if you are more than 500 km from your voting booth on election day you are entitled to abstain.