BUENOS AIRES — After less than two weeks on the job, Argentina's new president has already shaken this country's political, military and judicial establishments. First, he forced more than two dozen top generals into retirement. And this week, he purged the command of the federal police.
Nestor Kirchner is also, according to reports here, planning a housecleaning of the intelligence agency, which allegedly spied on him as a presidential candidate.
And on Wednesday evening, Kirchner called on Congress to impeach "one or several" members of the nation's Supreme Court. He said the court, whose majority is allied with a discredited former president, was "part of a past that is resisting the change which the future demands."
The former governor of a Patagonian province, Kirchner received only 22% of the vote in the preliminary round of voting in April, becoming president when his foe dropped out of the runoff. In the days since, Kirchner has surprised most observers of Argentine politics. They say he appears to be a species unseen in this troubled country for several years: a strong leader.
"What Kirchner has shown is that the political crisis of the last years is over," Horacio Verbitsky, a columnist for the newspaper Pagina 12, said in an interview. "All of these institutions were, in effect, running themselves, setting their own policies and agendas. Kirchner has stepped in to take control."
'Not Just Words'
For 18 months beginning in December 1999, Argentina was ruled by a series of interim presidents who seemed increasingly at the mercy of a bureaucracy and security apparatus rife with corruption. Former President Carlos Menem was widely seen as a puppet master pulling strings behind the scenes.
Before he took office on May 25, all indications seemed to point to a weak Kirchner presidency too. Although he had finished a close second in the April vote and subsequent polls showed Kirchner leading Menem by a ratio of more than 2 to 1, several observers said Menem tried to deny Kirchner the political capital of an overwhelming victory by withdrawing from the presidential race.
Instead, Kirchner is putting his stamp on the government, making good on a promise in his inauguration speech to lead a government of "deeds, and not just words." His moves so far amount to the most sweeping shake-up of Argentine government since the country returned to democracy in 1983.
