Carlos Menem (2 July 1930-14 February 2021) was the President of Argentina from 8 July 1989 to 10 December 1999, succeeding Raul Alfonsin and preceding Fernando de la Rua. Menem turned around the Argentine economy, which led to his reelection in 1995. He also privatized the YPF energy company and reformed education and the pension system, and the only thing stopping him from being President for a third term was a constitutional limit. From 2005 to 2021, he was a senator for La Rioja Province, and he died in 2021 at the age of 90.
Biography[]
Carlos Saul Menem was born on 2 July 1930 to a family of Sunni Muslim Syrians in La Rioja Province, Argentina. His parents immigrated from Yabroud, Rif Dimashq Governorate, Syria before the end of World War I, while Syria was still a part of the Ottoman Empire. Menem was raised a Muslim, and he accompanied his father as a travelling salesman. In 1955 he became a lawyer, having voiced his support of Peronism while at law school. That year, he was arrested after President Juan Peron was overthrown, but he joined the Justicialist Party (a Peronist movement) and in 1973 he became the leader of its La Rioja Province chapter, the same year that he was elected Governor of La Rioja. He was Governor from 1973 to 1976, when the overthrow of Isabel Peron's government led to Menem being arrested and tortured by Leopoldo Galtieri's military junta. In 1983, after the downfall of the government, Menem was reelected as Governor, keeping provincial payrolls well-padded and giving generous tax exemptions.
In 1988, Menem ran for President of Argentina, defeating Antonio Cafiero in the primaries and winning the race on 14 May 1989. On 8 July he was inaugarated as President of Argentina. Carlos Menem had to convert to Roman Catholicism as an expedient to becoming president, as the constitution stated that only Roman Catholics could be elected as President of Argentina. His son Carlitos Menem also converted, but his wife Zulema Yoma remained a Muslim. Menem restarted relations with the United Kingdom, which had fought Argentina during the 1982 Falklands War, which had led to the downfall of the Galtieri junta, and he resolved border issues with Chile. During Menem's presidency, however, there were political troubles. In 1994, the AMIA bombing killed 85 Jews and wounded over 300 people, and involvement by Iran and Hezbollah was suspected. Menem was accused of covering for family friend Alberto Kanoore Edul, a Syrian-Argentine businessman, as well as preventing an investigation against the powerful country of Iran. Also, Menem's son died in a helicopter crash in 1995 at the age of 26 in what is believed to be an attempted assassination, another mystery. In 1995, Menem was reelected as President due to his recovery of the economy of Argentina, but his term ended in 1999. He was not allowed to run for a third consecutive term, but in 2003 he ran again. He was unpopular by that time, so he lost to Nestor Kirchner. On 13 June 2013 he was found guilty of smuggling weapons to Ecuador and Croatia in 1991 and 1996 and sentenced to 11 years in prison. He died on 14 February 2021 at the age of 90 from a urinary tract infection.