Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2018
On the evening of 14 May 1989, hours after Argentina had held its first elections for a presidential succession in 60 years, the atmosphere at the Buenos Aires headquarters of the Unión del Centro Democrático(UCEDE) was lugubrious. The electoral news flowing into the computer terminals harbingered a resounding victoiy for Carlos Menem, the Peronist presidential candidate, and a remote third place showing of 6% for Alvaro Alsogaray, the presidential candidate of the young conservative party. Even in the capital city of Buenos Aires, where the UCEDE had led in the polls for congressional elections right up to election day, it trailed in third place. Would-be congressmen wandered the headquarters floor bewildered.
Research for this essay was supported by an Aaron Diamond Dissertation Fellowship from Columbia University's Center for the Study of Human Rights, as well as a fellowship from the Organization of American States, and was conducted while the author was a visiting researcher at the Centra de Investigaciones Europe-Latinoamericanas (EURAL), in Buenos Aires. Useful criticisms on previous versions were received from Judith Swartz, Atilio Boron, Alfred Stepan, Ezequiel Gallo, Robert Kaufman, Hector Schamis, Deborah Norden, Tim Christenfeld, Victoria Murillo, Blanca Heredia, and Douglas Chalmers. Thanks from the author are also due to Oscar Giménez Peña and Lisandro Echenique for patiently explaining some of their party's many intricacies. An earlier version of this paper was published as a working paper by Columbia University's Institute of Latin American and Iberian Studies and was presented at the XVI International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Miami (FL), 1-3 December 1989.