José Octavio Bordón | |
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Argentine Ambassador to the United States |
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In office May 25, 2003 – December 10, 2007 |
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Senator | |
In office December 10, 1992 – December 10, 1996 |
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Governor of Mendoza | |
In office December 10, 1987 – December 10, 1991 |
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Preceded by | Santiago Llaver |
Succeeded by | Rodolfo Gabrielli |
National Deputy of Argentina for Mendoza Province |
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In office December 10, 1983 – December 10, 1987 |
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Personal details | |
Born |
Rosario, Santa Fe Province, Argentina |
December 22, 1945
Political party |
Justicialist Party (1983-95) Frepaso (1995-96) |
Spouse(s) | Monica González Gaviola |
Profession | Academic |
José Octavio Bordón (born December 22, 1945) is an Argentine politician and diplomat.
Born in Rosario in 1945, Bordón graduated in sociology from the Universidad del Salvador in Buenos Aires in 1970. He was Professor of Political Sociology at Universidad Nacional de Cuyo from 1972 to 1976, and again from 1983 to 1995. He became President of the Fundación Andina in 1982. In 1983 he was elected to the Argentine Chamber of Deputies as deputy for Mendoza Province for the Justicialist Party. He was deputy chairman of the foreign affairs committee.
In 1987 Bordón was elected governor of Mendoza Province, stepping down in 1991. The following year he was elected to the Argentine Senate. Over that period he had become distant from the Peronist leadership, which under President Carlos Menem had moved to the right with neoliberal economic policies. In 1994 he led his followers into a new leftwing alliance, FrePaSo, with other parties and dissident Peronists. FrePaSo's popularity grew quickly. At that time he was a visiting professor at Georgetown University.
Bordón became presidential candidate for FrePaSo for the 1995 general elections, with Carlos Chacho Álvarez as his running mate. Despite being such a new party, Frepaso came in second with 30%, relegating the well-established UCR, Argentina's oldest political party still in existence, to third place. However, not long after the election, Bordón fell out with FrePaSo in a leadership dispute and returned to the Justicialist Party.