The flamboyant former president of Argentina

CARLOS Menem was a former Argentinian president who delivered short-lived economic stability and forged close ties with the United States in the 1990s even as he navigated scandal and enjoyed an often flamboyant lifestyle.

The dapper lawyer from one of Argentina’s poorest provinces, dismissed by critics as a playboy, steered Argentina toward a free-market model that was, at one point, envied by neighbours and favoured by investors.

Mr Menem’s accomplishments, however, coincided with growing unemployment, economic inequality and foreign debt.

Mr Menem was also supremely flexible as a politician, beginning his career as a self-styled disciple of General Juan Domingo Peron, who founded the populist movement that bears his name and placed the economy largely under state control.

Mr Menem, who served two terms as president between 1989 and 1999, transformed the country but in the opposite direction.

“I don’t know if I’m going to get the country out of its economic problems, but I’m sure going to make a more fun country,” Mr Menem once said.

He relished the company of celebrities, hosting The Rolling Stones and Madonna in Buenos Aires, and memorably shrugged off criticism after receiving a red Ferrari as a gift from an Italian businessman in 1990.

“It is mine, mine and mine,” Mr Menem, a car racing fan, said in front of television cameras.

“Why would I donate it?”

Later, he reluctantly agreed to auction off the car for 135,000 US dollars, with the proceeds going to state coffers.

The son of Syrian immigrants whose family owned a winery, Mr Menem was a folksy, three-time governor of north-western La Rioja Province, noted for shoulder-length hair and muttonchop sideburns when he came to international prominence.

He won the Peronist Party nomination and surged to victory in 1989 presidential elections, capitalising on economic and social chaos in Argentina.

During Mr Menem’s tenure, Argentina was the scene of deadly bombings, against the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 and a Jewish centre in 1994. Argentina accused Iran of involvement; Iran denied it. Mr Menem was later tried for the alleged cover-up of those responsible for the attack on the Jewish centre, but was found not guilty in a trial in 2019.

Mr Menem also renewed relations with Britain, severed after the Argentinian dictatorship’s 1982 invasion of the Falkland Islands. The invasion ended in Argentina’s defeat in a 74-day war.