{"id":701,"date":"2009-03-31T22:04:24","date_gmt":"2009-04-01T01:04:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.recoletacemetery.com\/?p=701"},"modified":"2009-03-31T22:04:24","modified_gmt":"2009-04-01T01:04:24","slug":"323-death-of-a-president-day-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/?p=701","title":{"rendered":"323. death of a president, day 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TN<\/p>\n

After several years of fighting lung cancer, former President Ra\u00fal Alfons\u00edn<\/strong> passed away this evening at 20:30 in his home on Avenida Santa Fe in Buenos Aires. The news came as no surprise since Alfons\u00edn’s health had taken a turn for the worse a few days earlier, but the response from both the public & the media was no less sentimental for it.<\/p>\n

Born in 1929 in the Province of Buenos Aires, Alfons\u00edn used his law degree as a stepping stone to politics & affiliated with the UCR<\/strong> (Uni\u00f3n C\u00edvica Radical<\/em>)—the same party born of the 1890 Revolution<\/a>. Risking his life to investigate cases of desaparecidos<\/em> during the last military dictatorship, he later won the 1983 election for President… the year democracy was restored in Argentina.<\/p>\n

\"La<\/p>\n

Alfons\u00edn’s term reflected the turbulent times & the need for conflict resolution. He inherited an abused economy with extraordinary debt & hyperinflation but managed to make some improvements with the equivalent of a National Food Bank Plan (Plan Alimentaria Nacional<\/em>). However Alfons\u00edn’s greatest contribution to Argentine society was taking the prior military regime to Supreme Court & trying them for human rights abuses. Further economic problems forced him to resign seven months early to his successor, Carlos Menem<\/strong>, in 1989.<\/p>\n

\"La<\/p>\n

Regardless of the ups & downs of Alfons\u00edn’s presidency, he is remembered as a studious politician who valued democratic process… a man who did not hold a grudge, strived for consensus, & never abused his position of power. That’s something remarkable in Argentine politics & mainly why his death caused such a massive response from the public.<\/p>\n

\"La<\/p>\n

About 500 people went to his house & held a candlelight vigil while either chanting his name or singing the national anthem. Three days of official mourning were called for by Vice-President Julio Cobos<\/strong>, in charge of the country while Christina Kirchner<\/strong> is in Qatar on her way to London for the G-20 summit.<\/p>\n

The family agreed to have a public wake for Alfons\u00edn in Congress the next day, & he would be buried the\u00a0day after in the pantheon for the fallen during the 1890 Revolution in Recoleta Cemetery. Alfons\u00edn will be the first President buried there since Arturo Illia<\/strong> (term 1963-66)… also a member of the UCR political party & buried in the same pantheon.<\/p>\n

All photos except the first are from the DyN<\/strong> news agency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After several years of fighting lung cancer, former President Ra\u00fal Alfons\u00edn passed away this evening at 20:30 in his home on Avenida Santa Fe in…<\/p>\n

Continue reading323. death of a president, day 1<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,15,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-politicians","category-presidents","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}