Argentina's Menem says he'll run for president in 2011

Argentina's ex-President Carlos Menem, who governed the country between 1989-1999, said that he will run for president in the 2011 elections, in a statement released Saturday.

"The decision has been taken and we are moving ahead in that regard," Menem, 77, said in an interview published this Saturday by the Argentine daily Nueva Rioja.

The ex-head of state said that the purpose of his life "is politics, it always was and will be until my dying day, despite the persecutions" by "constitutional governments and previously by military ones."

"Many people are with us, young people and those of my generation," said the ex-president, who currently represents the Argentine province of La Rioja in the Senate.

Menem put aside the urge to run for president in last October's general elections after the defeat he suffered the previous August in the balloting for governor of La Rioja, his native province, in which he came in third with 21.8 percent of the vote.

The ex-president last ran for president in 2003, when he received 24.3 percent of the vote compared with 22 percent for Nestor Kirchner, but did not get the percentage necessary to win in the first round.

Menem's withdrawal when faced with a sure defeat in the second round gave the presidency to Kirchner, who led the nation until December 2007, when his wife, President Cristina Fernandez, took office.

Menem said he faces the "persecution of the Kirchners" and believes that they want to secure his "elimination from the world of politics."

After the end of his second term in 1999, Menem had to deal with several court cases against him for presumed irregularities committed during his presidency.

The ex-head of state was taken into custody in 2001 after being tried for leading an "illicit association" for smuggling arms to Croatia and Ecuador, but was released six months later after the Supreme Court annulled the charges in a controversial verdict that has been appealed by prosecutor Alicia Sustaita.

The Argentine judiciary confirmed this week that he will be prosecuted for the "qualified contraband" of arms to Ecuador and Croatia between 1991-1995, for which he will undergo a hearing and public trial.

He will also have to face another trial for concealing a bank account in Switzerland, among other goods, and for lying in his accounting statement to the nation when he left office, as well as being investigated for other judicial matters. EFE

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