Why López Murphy runs

Citizens protested when he proposed slashing the budget and tinkering with social security, prompting him to resign. Now, with Argentina in even worse shape, a defiant López Murphy is back -- running for president.

Citizens protested in the streets when he proposed slashing the budget and tinkering with social security, prompting him to resign. Now, with Argentina in even worse shape, a defiant López Murphy is back -- running for president. “I told the truth, and the public wasn’t ready to acknowledge it,” says the neoliberal economist, who is campaigning on a platform of strict austerity. “Now they know that not reacting with the right policies came at the expense of our well-being.”

Argentina certainly needs an effective recovery plan. The country defaulted on $132 billion in debt in December 2001, broke the peso’s one-for-one peg to the U.S. dollar in early 2002 and later froze bank deposits. For a time, presidents came and went with the frequency of weekend tourists. “We have to build a government of law,” says López Murphy, 51. “We breached a lot of contracts.”

He faces long odds. Though he gained ground in a recent poll, he remains in last place with 7 to 8 percent, behind two ex-presidents, a governor and a congresswoman. On the bright side, a candidate must win 45 percent of the April 27 vote to avoid a runoff, and none currently polls higher than 20 percent. “It’s impossible for a candidate to say, ‘I have no chance’ or ‘I am running for the pleasure of it,’” says López Murphy. “I’ll try to win.”

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