Front for a Country in Solidarity
Frente por un País Solidario |
|
---|---|
Leader | Carlos Álvarez |
Founded | 1994 |
Dissolved | 2001 |
Merged into |
Socialist Party Radical Civic Union Justicialist Party Other minor parties |
Headquarters | Buenos Aires, Argentina |
Ideology |
Big tent, Peronism, Radicalism, Social democracy, Christian democracy, Humanism |
National affiliation | The Alliance |
Colours | Blue, red and yellow |
The Front for a Country in Solidarity (Spanish: Frente por un País Solidario or FREPASO) was a political party in Argentina. It was formed in 1994 out of the Broad Front (Frente Grande), which had been founded mainly by progressive members of the Peronist Justicialist Party who denounced the policies and the alleged corruption of the Carlos Menem administration; the Frente joined with other dissenting Peronists, the Unidad Socialista and several other leftist parties and individuals. Its leading figures were José Octavio Bordón, Carlos "Chacho" Álvarez and Graciela Fernández Meijide.
Shortly after the founding of the party, Bordón stood for President at the 1995 elections with Álvarez as running mate. The campaign was very successful, and Bordón came second with 33 percent of the vote. Subsequently, Bordón proposed converting FrePaSo into a unified party, while Álvarez wanted a loose confederation of different parties. On May 17, 1995, Bordón and Álvarez announced the formation of a confederation, with a unified political platform and leadership, with the third largest block in the Argentine National Congress. The Intransigent Party and the Christian Democratic Party joined the coalition. Bordón later resigned after a leadership battle and returned to the Justicialist Party.
The FrePaSo campaigned for the 1999 elections in an alliance with the larger Radical Civic Union (UCR) and a few provincial parties, which won the presidency for Fernando de la Rúa. Frepaso activist Aníbal Ibarra was elected Mayor of Buenos Aires in 2000 on the Alianza ticket - the Alliance for Work, Justice and Education. The alliance was effectively broken the next year, when vice-president Chacho Álvarez resigned amidst public intra-party accusations of bribery in the Senate, followed shortly after by other leading members.