President to Seek a Barred 3rd Term

Carlos Menem has come clean about wanting a third consecutive term as president, creating a constitutional battle that is splitting his Peronist Party and infuriating the opposition. The twice-elected president, blocked by the constitution from running again, said he will ask party members at a congress today “what I have to do to be a candidate, to not be proscribed so that I can compete in 1999’s elections.” Alarmed, political opposition members asked ordinary Argentines to defend their constitution. Even the Roman Catholic Church warned Menem against “unbridled ambition.”