Before the 1983 Argentine Election

[Makoto Lúder]

Before the 1983 Argentine Election

In 1976, the military announced a coup d'état that overthrew President Isabel Perón, and financial instability, inflation, widespread corruption, international isolation, and violence were the problems of her last year in office. Many citizens believed that the process of national reorganization and the military's rule would improve Argentina's overall situation. However, when the third dictator of the regime, General Leopoldo Galtieri, woke up in the early morning of June 18, 1982, to a letter demanding his resignation, he had no doubt that the process was over. Contrary to the wishes of Commander Galtieri, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chose Army General Reinaldo Bignone as the new president, instead choosing to forerunner the democratic transition, which President Bignone announced would take place in March 1984. The new governor of the Central Bank, Domingo Cavallo, abolished the interest rate stipulated in Central Bank Circular No. 1050 and abandoned the policy in July, an economic liberalization move complemented by Bignone's restoration of limited freedom of association and freedom of expression. In 1981, centrist UCR leader Ricardo Balbín called a "pluripartisanship" in which Argentina's many political parties jointly pushed for elections in anticipation of a return to democracy.

Six years of intermittent wage freezes, anti-industrial policies, and restrictive measures such as Document 1050 had left GDP per capita at its lowest level since 1968 and real wages down by about 40 percent. In this context, the return of some freedoms soon sparked a wave of strikes, including two general strikes led by Saúl Ubaldini, leader of the CGT union (then the largest in South Africa). With resistance growing from hardliners within the regime, Admiral Jorge Anaya (later court-martialed for serious corruption during the 1982 Falklands War) announced his candidacy for president in August, becoming the first to do so; he proved deeply unpopular and Bignone immediately blocked the move.

On December 16, 1982, amid growing calls for faster elections, police brutally suppressed a demonstration in the Plaza de Mayo in downtown Buenos Aires, leaving one protester dead, and Bignone wanted to postpone the elections indefinitely. The regime worked on damage control and began preparations for a transition, destroying evidence of the killings of between 15,000 and 30,000 dissidents (mostly students, academics, and union workers not implicated in the violence Argentina had suffered from 1973 to 1976). In an effort to quell demands for the whereabouts of the disappeared, in February 1983, Buenos Aires police chief Ramón Campos publicly admitted to the crimes, claiming that the "disappeared" were in fact dead. Campos' interview sparked popular outrage, forcing President Bignone to stop denying the tragedy and, on April 28, announce a blanket amnesty for those implicated (including himself).