This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BUENOS AIRES 002891 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR WHA/BSC AND INR/RA, 
NSC FOR TOM SHANNON AND MIKE DEMPSEY, 
SOUTHCOM FOR POLAD 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/07/2014 
TAGS: PGOV PREL AR
SUBJECT: ARGENTINA: THE UCR AT A CROSSROADS 
 
REF: A. BUENOS AIRES 0203 
 
     ¶B. BUENOS AIRES 4321 
     ¶C. BUENOS AIRES 4367 
 
Classified By: Ambassador Lino Gutierrez for Reasons 1.4 (B) and (D) 
 
¶1.  (U)  Summary: The election of Adolfo Stubrin as president 
of the national Radical Civil Union (UCR) convention provides 
the UCR the opportunity to reorganize the party and begin to 
build on its grass-roots strength to serve as a viable 
opposition to the ruling Peronist Party (PJ).  Stubrin's 
first act has been to organize the opposition in the National 
Congress to oppose the GOA's attempts to grant special powers 
to Cabinet Chief, Alberto Fernandez.  Stubrin and UCR 
National Committee head, Angel Rozas, need to build up the 
party's provincial base, make alliances with other opposition 
groups, promote greater transparency in the party's internal 
decision-making, and heal the divisions within the party in 
order to revive the UCR to its traditional place as a strong 
political force in Argentina.  End Summary. 
 
¶2.  (U)  On September 24, Adolfo Stubrin was elected to head 
the UCR convention, defeating former President Alfonsin's 
choice, Luis Caceres.  Stubrin's candidacy was backed by 
provincial elites and members of the National Committee that 
want a break with the old Alfonsin leadership and a more 
confrontational stance taken toward President Nestor 
Kirchner's administration.  The party is seeking to recover 
from the dismal two percent of the vote it received in the 
2003 presidential elections, following a December 2002 party 
primary that was tarnished with accusations of fraud.  The 
break with the old guard was by no means complete, as Rozas, 
who was a central figure in the 2002 primary disaster, 
remains in his position.  However, the election of Stubrin 
provided some badly needed new blood into the party 
leadership at a time when the party has been struggling to 
deal with the dominance of the PJ in national politics.  The 
UCR has the most Congressional seats of any party after the 
PJ, with 44 Deputies and 14 Senators.  The party retains 
significant strength in many of the provinces and is the only 
opposition party with a grass-roots party organization 
throughout the country.  The UCR also holds the governorships 
in Chaco, Catamarca, Rio Negro, and Mendoza and UCR candidate 
Gerardo Zamora leads in the polls for the February 2005 
gubernatorial election in Santiago del Estero.  Stubrin is 
seeking to build on this base to revitalize the party.  The 
movement to replace the Ley de Lemas system with primaries in 
key provinces, such as Santa Fe, also provides an opportunity 
for the UCR to make inroads into traditional PJ strongholds. 
(Note: The Ley de Lemas, still utilized in several provinces, 
allows parties to run multiple candidates in elections, with 
seats going to the party, rather than the candidate, who 
receives the most votes.  In practice, this system has been 
used by the PJ in provinces, like Santa Fe, to shut 
opposition parties out of power.  For example, in the 2003 
Santa Fe election for governor, Peronist Jorge Obeid was 
declared the winner, even though he only received 21 percent 
of the vote, while front-running Socialist candidate, Hermes 
Binner, received 36 percent of the vote.  Obeid was elected 
because the sum of the Peronists candidates totaled 43 
percent, while the sum of the Socialist candidates was only 
38 percent.) 
 
¶3.  (U)  Stubrin's first act as party congress head was to 
call for a unified opposition stand against the GOA's bid to 
give Cabinet Chief Fernandez powers, or "superpoderes", over 
the 2005 budget that are normally the exclusive right of the 
Congress.  This effort is made more complicated because the 
last time these powers were invoked it was at the behest of 
UCR President de la Rua's government for then Minister of the 
Economy, Domingo Cavallo.  Stubrin called for a meeting on 
Tuesday, October 12th of all opposition parties to organize a 
united front against the GOA's proposal.  The call was met by 
opposition from the Alfonsin camp within the UCR, showing how 
far the party needs to go in order to achieve unity. 
However, Stubrin's initial efforts to oppose the GOA's 
request for "superpoderes" have been received favorably by 
other opposition leaders outside of the UCR.  There is talk 
of an alliance between Recrear leader Ricardo Lopez Murphy 
and the UCR.  Affirmation for an Egalitarian Republic (ARI) 
leader Elisa Carrio says that she will not enter into an 
alliance with the UCR or any other party, although she 
supports Stubrin's efforts to oppose the granting of 
"superpoderes" to Fernandez. 
 
¶4.  (C)  Former UCR Deputy Jesus Rodriguez recently told 
Poloff that the UCR's two top goals should be the restoration 
of transparency in the internal decision-making of the party 
and the formation of solid alliances with other opposition 
groups.  Rodriguez worked tirelessly with other UCR members 
to ensure that Stubrin was elected and felt his election 
represented a new beginning for the party.  Leading pollster 
Manuel Mora y Araujo recently remarked to Poloff that the UCR 
needed to purge all of its top leadership in order to be able 
to move beyond the stigma of the failed de la Rua 
administration and the 2002 primary debacle.  (Comment: Some 
POL contacts continue to believe unproven allegations that 
Rozas was involved in vote rigging in the 2002 UCR primary, 
arguing that Rozas therefore needs to resign in order for the 
party to make a complete break with its troubled past.  When 
fraud charges were first raised in the press after the 
primary elections, Rozas appealed to the electoral council 
for new elections in the disputed provinces in order to clear 
his name.  When the request for new elections was denied, he 
resigned his leadership post in the party and only took it up 
again after new elections were completed in February 2003. 
See Reftels for more background.)  Dr. Ruben Octavio Villan, 
who works for Deputy Marcelo Rafael Godoy, both formerly of 
the UCR, reported to Poloff that he was not optimistic about 
the long-term prospects of the UCR's attempts at alliances. 
Villan argued that the opposition groups are competing for 
the same minority share of the votes and are plagued with 
leaders with sizable egos, who are not capable of sharing the 
limelight. 
 
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COMMENT 
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¶5.  (C)  The UCR is the only party with sufficient ground 
strength to organize a viable opposition to the PJ.  The 
election of Stubrin and his recent attempts to build a united 
opposition front against the Casa Rosada's "superpoderes" 
proposal is a good start toward that end.  The party 
continues to suffer from infighting between those aligned 
with Stubrin and Rozas and the Alfonsin wing of the party. 
Fortunately, the new party leadership has a year to work out 
the differences within the party in order to prepare for the 
next great challenge in the 2005 elections.  The UCR is 
Argentina's oldest political party and has recovered from 
several crushing blows in the past, such as the 1930 military 
overthrow of Radical President Hipolito Yrigoyen and 
Alfonsin's forced early departure from office in 1989, to 
subsequently regain the reigns of leadership in Argentina. 
The next year will determine whether the UCR can once again 
rise from the ashes, or remain a divided, minor party. 
 
GUTIERREZ