Menem rises from political tomb, and heads for the palace

Argentines call him Tutankhamun because of the way he can rise from the political tomb: Carlos Menem, whose last presidency ended in 1999 in economic crisis and scandal, is having a revival.

Shortly to become a father at the age of 73 in a demonstration of virility bound to boost his fortunes, Mr Menem is tipped to coast through tomorrow's first round of presidential elections and to be well placed in the run-off on 18 May.

Argentines are not enthused by the prospect that their former president will return for a third term. Rather, battered by three years of turmoil administered by revolving-door rulers, many are turning to the recycled Carlos Menem as the least worst option. Polls show most Argentines believe he will win, even those who won't vote for him.

"We Argentines have another chance," urges Mr Menem's campaign slogan on posters bearing his surgically lifted, curiously rubberised features in pensive profile. The message encapsulates his personal ambition to return – like the strongman who founded his party, Juan Domingo Peron – to the presidential palace for a third term, and his appeal to his compatriots' to re-elect the man they once rejected as untrustworthy.

Carlos Menem was imprisoned during the dictatorship in the 1970s for his Peronist actions, but as President between 1989 and 1999 he overturned all the political and economic principles of the populist Peron.

Right-wing politicians watched with awe Mr Menem's free-market policies and his hammering of the unions. "Not even the generals would have dared do what he is doing," they murmured in admiration.

Mr Menem's swerve to the right is now so pronounced that he proposes to bring the armed forces, banned from politics since the fall of the dictatorship in the Falklands débâcle of 1982, back on to Argentina's streets to combat crime: a proposal condemned as "madness" by his conservative presidential rival, Ricardo Lopez Murphy.

Peron, and his charismatic wife, Evita, once mobilised the mightiest industrial working class in Latin America with a blend of strident economic nationalism and labour welfare. Today, with 60 per cent of Argentines in poverty, Peronism is splintered by economic crisis. Mr Menem is one of three Peronist candidates in tomorrow's poll, each tainted with failure, none of them offering anything approaching a coherent programme.

Nestor Kirchner, a Peronist who operates as caudillo in his Patagonian fiefdom of Santa Cruz, is expected to run Mr Menem close. The third Peronist, Adolfo Rodriguez Saa, strongman in the small western San Luis region ruled by his family for 150 years, was President for just seven days in 2001, before the economic maelstrom dragged him down. Politically dead a year ago, El Adolfo has risen from the ashes.

Other candidates are Elisa Carro and Mr Lopez Murphy, each leading shrivelled branches of the once great Union Civica Radical (UCR), historically Argentina's anti-Peronist democratic alternative. The devout Ms Carro stands for ethical renewal, Mr Lopez Murphy for the UCR's middle-class and business values.

None is expected to win more than 20 per cent tomorrow, though remnants of Argentina's traumatised and impoverished middle class are expected to rally behind Mr Lopez Murphy in the second round.

Extravagant rhetoric and cynical electioneering have marked a campaign almost devoid of political content. As campaigning closed, Mr Menem's supporters in Buenos Aires made superhuman efforts to cajole apathetic voters with wine, sandwiches and expenses to bus them to rallies timed for cable television's evening news bulletins.

After haranguing the capital's half-full Lanus stadium, Mr Lopez Murphy mustered 20 vehicles to trickle through the workers' district of La Boca. The candidate greeted bewildered passers-by from a fire engine, and bestowed his smile on shadowed doorways and shuttered windows.

Mr Menem has emerged from two scandals: he was tried for smuggling arms to Croatia and Ecuador during his first presidency, but the Supreme Court shelved the case in 2001. Then he was accused of taking US$10m (£6.3m) from Iran for covering up Tehran's alleged involvement in blowing up a Jewish social centre in Buenos Aires in 1994. He protested his innocence and the case was dropped. He sealed his comeback by marrying the Chilean former Miss Universe, Cecilia Bolocco, 37, and recently announced that she was expecting their child.

Argentines' cynical black humour was revealed by wall graffiti at the height of the economic meltdown last year: "Enough Reality: We Want Promises!" Voting is compulsory unless you are over 70 or insane, prompting Argentines today to joke that their best option is to claim membership of either category.

Francesc Relea is correspondent for 'El Pais'