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C O N F I D E N T I A L BUENOS AIRES 000196 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/19/2028 
TAGS: PREL PGOV ELAB AR
SUBJECT: ARGENTINA'S FORMER PRESIDENT KIRCHNER LOOKS TO 
RETAIN POLITICAL CONTROL 
 
 
REF: (A) 07 BUENOS AIRES 2372 (B) BUENOS AIRES 0014 
 
Classified By: Ambassador Wayne for reasons 1.4 (b) & (d). 
 
¶1. (C) Summary and introduction:  Just two months out of 
office, Argentina's ex-president Nestor Kirchner is still 
very much in the limelight.  Kirchner is moving to revive and 
take control of the Justicialist Party (PJ), commonly 
referred to as the Peronist Party in honor of its founder, 
Juan Domingo Peron.  For most of the last 60 years, the 
Peronists have been the most powerful political movement in 
Argentina.  The PJ retains the nation's strongest political 
structure, even though severe internal squabbling led a 
federal court in 2005 to put the party into a trusteeship. 
The court intervention essentially took the party off the 
market, even for the 2007 elections, but the PJ remains a 
potent brand name.  Kirchner appears poised to take control 
of the party, providing him a powerful patronage vehicle. 
End summary. 
 
Life After the Presidency 
------------------------- 
 
¶2. (SBU) Before turning over the presidential sash to his 
wife, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (CFK), on December 10, 
Nestor Kirchner (NK) had been quoted saying facetiously that 
he planned to retire to a ""literary cafe.""  No one, however, 
expected NK to spend his days sipping coffee, poring over 
newspapers and magazines, and NK has not.  Shortly after his 
wife's inauguration, after a U.S. attorney quoted an 
allegation made by a defendant that CFK's presidential 
campaign had been the intended beneficiary of some 
intercepted cash from Venezuela, he used public appearances 
to lambaste the USG ""conspiracy"" against her and to demand 
the U.S. ""return the fugitive"" Antonini-Wilson (ref A). 
Weeks later, NK signed up for Hugo Chavez's ""bungle in the 
jungle"" (ref B).  NK has also appeared at some organized 
labor events in an apparent attempt to sustain lines of 
communication with the labor camp headed by CGT leader Hugo 
Moyano in anticipation of wage negotiations involving labor, 
business, and the GOA. 
 
¶3. (SBU) Having leased expensive office space in tony Puerto 
Madero, a short distance from the Casa Rosada presidential 
palace, NK has publicly turned his attention to a bid for 
winning the presidency of the PJ.  Commonly referred to as 
the Peronist Party in honor of the PJ's founder, Juan Domingo 
Peron, the PJ was the most powerful political movement in 
Argentina for most of the last 60 years, alternating in power 
with the Radical Party (UCR) that earlier in the 20th century 
had begun the process of expanding suffrage and opening up 
the political process.  Like its founder, the PJ has been 
tough to pin down ideologically, veering from left to right 
and back again, often with populist overtones and a 
pronounced authoritarian streak. 
 
Peronist Party Still a Stronghold 
--------------------------------- 
 
¶4. (SBU) The PJ remains the country's strongest political 
structure, although the party's presidency has been vacant 
since 2003.  The last PJ convention in 2004 ended in a 
stalemate between two main factions: the Kirchneristas 
(supporting Kirchner) and the Duhaldistas (supporting former 
president and estranged Kirchner mentor Eduardo Duhalde).  In 
September 2005, a federal judge appointed a trustee to take 
temporary control of the party and straighten out its 
internal procedures in order to resolve the conflict.  The 
delay in the party's reorganization forced various Peronist 
presidential aspirants in 2007 to run under different 
banners.  CFK, for example, ran as the candidate of the 
Victory Front (FpV), the coalition first cobbled together in 
2003 to elect NK.  Roberto Lavagna, who was once Kirchner's 
Minister of Economy, ran as presidential candidate under 
another banner while continuing to proclaim himself a 
Peronist, as did the governor of San Luis, Alberto Rodriguez 
Saa, another ""Peronist."" 
 
¶5. (U) The National PJ Assembly is expected to meet on March 
7 and call for internal elections on May 17.  The PJ Assembly 
gathers about 900 delegates and can take decisions with a 
quorum of 33%.  The province of Buenos Aires accounts for 
over 250 delegates, and therefore the negotiations among 
leaders of the Buenos Aires Provincial PJ Assembly are 
particularly tense in advance of their February 22 caucus. 
 
Kirchner's Prospects Look Good 
------------------------------ 
 
¶6. (SBU) The only declared candidate challenging NK for the 
PJ presidency is Francisco de Narvaez, the wealthy 
businessman who lost his 2007 bid for the governorship of 
 
Buenos Aires province to NK's vice president, Daniel Scioli. 
It is also expected that a small faction led by San Luis 
Governor Alberto Rodriguez Saa and former president Carlos 
Menem will also seek to block Kirchner.  The conventional 
wisdom is that Kirchner will win by acclamation.  Indeed, he 
has mounted ""Operation Clamor"" to do just that, rounding up 
the endorsements of governors, mayors, legislators, labor 
leaders, and others. 
 
¶7. (SBU) Kirchner's prospects were advanced recently by his 
re-enlistment of Roberto Lavagna, who had served as Minister 
of Economy for the first half of Kirchner's term in office 
but had harshly criticized the Kirchners during his 2007 bid 
for the presidency.  Lavagna came in third place with almost 
17% of the vote.  His electoral vehicle was the Coalition for 
an Advanced Nation (UNA), a new political groupin that was 
largely a refuge for Radicals whose own party (UCR) was in 
disarray similar to the PJ's. 
 
¶8. (SBU) The February 3 announcement that Kirchner had 
negotiated Lavagna's return to the PJ, presumably in exchange 
for a PJ vice-presidency, prompted cries of foul play from 
other opposition leaders, including Lavagna's erstwhile 
running mate, Gerardo Morales of the UCR.  Elisa Carrio, who 
had come in second place behind CFK in the October election 
with 23% of the vote, accused Lavagna of having campaigned as 
an ""opposition"" candidate at the direction of Kirchner in an 
effort to divide the opposition vote.  According to Carrio, 
Lavagna's ""return"" to the PJ proved he had actually never 
left the Kirchner camp. 
 
¶9. (C) Most analysts, however, considered Kirchner's 
recruitment of Lavagna to be a master stroke, since it 
rendered the Radicals, the Civic Coalition, and other 
opposition figures flailing ineffectually, and, subsequent 
press stories suggest, it also may have won the acquiescence 
of Eduardo Duhalde to Kirchner's bid for the PJ presidency. 
Lavagna reportedly retains strong ties to former president 
Duhalde, widely considered to be the man who maneuvered to 
get Kirchner the presidency in 2003, only to be forced off 
the political stage by his mentee.  Duhalde's praise for the 
Kirchner-Lavagna pact suggested he would not back challenges 
to Kirchner's expected coronation as head of the PJ.  Other 
commentators have noted Kirchner's mastery at checking the 
power grabs of potential rivals.  They claimed that 
Kirchner's agreement with Lavagna had contained the presumed 
ambitions of Buenos Aires Governor Daniel Scioli for the PJ 
vice-presidency, for example. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶10. (C) Although Peronism as an ideology is malleable and 
amorphous, there has been some speculation that Kirchner's 
real agenda is to displace Peron in the affections and 
allegiances of Argentina's working class.  Kirchner does not 
have Peron's transcendent charisma, he evinces many of the 
same masterful political instincts.  Kirchner's expected 
election by acclamation to the presidency of the Justicialist 
Party will provide him a powerful vehicle for keeping his 
wife's critics and rivals at bay, and for shaping the 
Argentine political landscape for years to come. 
 
WAYNE