File spoon-archives/marxism-feminism.archive/marxism-feminism_1997/marxism-feminism.9708, message 102


From: Michael Hoover <hoov-AT-freenet.tlh.fl.us>
Subject: M-FEM: 'Chiche' Woos Votes With Evita-Like Appeal to Poor Women (fwd)
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 97 6:41:33 18000


Forwarded message:
> Date: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 19:41:52 -0400 (EDT)
> From: "Victor O. Story" <story-AT-kutztown.edu>
> To: ATWS <thrdwrld-AT-sphinx.Gsu.EDU>
> Subject: 'Chiche' Woos Votes With Evita-Like Appeal to Poor Women (fwd)
>   	  				 
>    Move over Madonna. A real-life Argentine is looking to take over  
> Evita's populist crown. 
>    Hilda ``Chiche'' Duhalde's drive to become queen of the poor -  
> funded by her husband, a likely candidate for president in 1999 - has 
> opponents concerned about a rise of an old-style Peronism. 
>    Eduardo Duhalde, governor of Buenos Aires Province, has given her  
> $80 million, which she has been using to create community projects, 
> wooing working-class mothers with milk and eggs and shortcuts to 
> health care. The money is part of Governor Duhalde's provincial 
> budget. Mrs. Duhalde's use of it is legal because her charity work is 
> supposedly independent of her campaign to win a seat in Congress. 
>    The business community and middle class look on nervously. They  
> have grim memories of President Juan Domingo Peron being handed 
> unconditional power because the woman by his side showered workers 
> with motherly affection and gifts. ``Evita crystallized a moment when 
> the poor were happy,'' says sociologist Juan Carlos Partantiero at the
> University of Buenos Aires. ``Duhalde wants to reincarnate that 
> Peronist period to take over from [President] Carlos Menem.'' 
>    The opposition accuses Mrs. Duhalde of ``Evitismo'' - buying the  
> poor's votes for her husband using the same mobilizing tricks as Evita
> did for Peron. But Mrs. Duhalde seems to welcome the comparison. She 
> fills sports stadiums with cheering women. Polls show that her 
> charity-oriented strategy is working. She leads her rival, Sen. 
> Graciela Fernandez Meijide, for a seat in the Congress by 4 percentage
> points in the polls. 
>    A victory in the country's electoral stronghold may not only secure
> her husband's presidency in 1999, critics say, but return the country 
> to the peculiar populist-totalitarian government created by Peron and 
> Evita 50 years ago. 
>    Like Evita, Duhalde's strategy is to gain popularity by attacking  
> the political establishment, then become a candidate herself, saying 
> the public clamors for it. ``Politicians lie,'' she said recently. 
> ``In Congress, nobody listens to each other and they sleep on the 
> benches.'' 
>    Many of the women who receive help see Mrs. Duhalde as a savior.  
> Others know that it is a political ploy, but they say they will go 
> along with it. Voting is obligatory, they say, and if they have to 
> vote for someone, it might as well be someone who has helped, if only 
> with a few liters of milk. 
>    While most of Mrs. Duhalde's critics come from the city, some  
> provincial residents are skeptical of the Duhaldes' tactics. ``We are 
> paying more taxes now than ever and look at the mess we live in,'' 
> says Pancho Perez, pointing to the mud roads, garbage, and wooden 
> shacks of La Matanza. ``Now elections are coming, they are starting to
> pave the roads. People are grateful because they are ignorant and they
> don't know that in a democracy, if you have paid high taxes, you 
> should have paved roads.'' 
>    But the emotional pull of Peronism in the poor provincial zones is
> still strong. ``There is just no way we can compete with Duhalde,'' 
> says an opposition spokesman. ``He has $600 million a year to spend. 
> They save it for Evita-style, vote-grabbing measures at the last 
> minute, and sadly it works.'' 
--


   

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