Adolfo Rodríguez Saá

Adolfo Rodríguez Saá

Adolfo Rodríguez Saá Páez Montero (born July 25, 1947 in San Luis , San Luis Province , Argentina ) is an Argentine politician and was President of Argentina from December 23, 2001 to December 30, 2001 for just under a week .

When Fernando de la Rúa resigned from the office of president on December 21, 2001 after economic and political unrest, the Argentine constitution actually meant that the vice-president should have assumed the office of president. The Vice President Carlos Álvarez had already resigned his office in October 2000 and this post has been vacant since then. The next in line was therefore, according to the constitution, Ramón Puerta , Chairman of the Senate. However, he was overwhelmed with this task from the start and was happy when he was able to hand over the presidential sash to Adolfo Rodríguez Saá on December 23rd.

Adolfo Rodríguez Saá, until then governor of the province of San Luis, was elected interim president with 169 votes to 138 by representatives of both chambers of congress and by the provincial governors. He was originally supposed to hold this office until April 5, 2002, that is, until the time when a newly elected president should have taken office.

Shortly after taking office, Adolfo Rodríguez Saá declared a moratorium on Argentina's foreign debt in order to use this money for social purposes. He promised to create a million new jobs and to pay every head of the family an unemployment benefit of 300 pesos and 60 pesos for every child under the age of 18.

However, he kept the bank balance frozen and did not shake the 1: 1 parity of the Argentine peso with the US dollar. But he wanted to introduce a third currency, the argentino , which should float freely against the peso and the dollar in order to create more purchasing power and to replace the provincial emergency money . He announced this new currency on December 26, 2001.

The popularity of the new president and the support in his own party quickly fell. After a week in office, he could only count on the support of the unions. The population demonstrated again as in the last days of Fernando de la Rúa's term in office.

At a meeting of all Peronist provincial governors that he called on December 30, 2001, only six out of fourteen governors attended. Disappointed, Rodriguez Saá traveled to San Luis and announced his resignation from there.

Since Ramón Puerta, chairman of the Senatorial Chamber , had no interest in becoming interim president again, Eduardo Óscar Camaño became president of Argentina on December 31st. On the first day of the new year, Eduardo Duhalde was elected as the new president. He became the fifth president of Argentina in just 13 days.

Web links

• Full biography (Spanish)

predecessor	Office	successor
Ramón Puerta	President of Argentina 2001	Eduardo Camaño