Thousands celebrate Peronist victory

Press, 16 May 1989, Page 10

Thousands celebrate Peronist victory

NZPA-Reuter Buenos Aires Thousands of Peronists took to the streets in Argentine cities to celebrate populist Carlos Menem’s crushing victory in Presidential elections on Sunday, and their party’s return to power. A few hours after polling stations closed in Buenos Aires a huge crowd began to build up in front of the downtown hotel where Mr Menem’s campaign had its headquarters. “I’m a Peronist and I adore Menem,” a woman supporter, aged 55, told Reuters outside the hotel as busloads of people arrived beating huge drums, waving flags and singing the party anthem. A public-address system blared folk music from a stage erected in front of the hotel for the candidate, who later announced he would remain in his home province of La Rioja, 1100 km north-west of Buenos Aires.

Street vendors touted plastic horns, party flags, lapel pins and headbands. The fastestselling souvenirs were adhesive bushy sideburns, modelled on those the charismatic Mr Menem sports. Federal police said the celebrations were peaceful but a spokesman for outgoing President Raul Alfonsin’s Radical Party said a

party supporter was shot and wounded.

A spokesman, Luis Domeniani, told reporters that unidentified gunmen shot the Radical supporter in a Buenos Aires suburb. Mr Menem claimed victory two hours after voting ended on Sunday night, predicting he would take 57 per cent of the vote with 36 per cent for Radical candidate, Eduardo Angeloz. During his campaign Mr Menem promised a “productive revolution” to cure Argentina’s economic ills by granting all-round wage increases and easy credit to boost output and consumption. He also plans to demand a five-year grace period on the country’s SUS6O billion ($NZ97.56 billion) foreign debt.

“We Peronists will save the country,” a Menem supporter, Luis Salazar said during victory celebrations. “The people punished Alfonsin for his bad economic policies.”