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peronismo

Peronism, also known as justicialism, is a labour and left-leaning Argentine political movement based on the ideas and legacy of Argentine ruler Juan Perón (1895–1974). It has been an influential movement in 20th- and 21st-century Argentine politics. Since 1946, Peronists have won 10 out of the 14 presidential elections in which they have been allowed to run.
Ideologically populist, Peronism is widely considered to be a variant of left-wing populism, although some have described it as a Latin American form of fascism instead. Others have criticized these descriptions as too one-dimensional, as Peronism also includes many variants, including Kirchnerism and revolutionary Peronism on the left, and Federal Peronism and Orthodox Peronism on the right. Peronism is described as socialist by some political scientists, while other scholars evaluate Peronism as a paternalistic conservative ideology, with a mixture of militant labourism and traditional conservatism. However, proponents of Peronism see it as socially progressive. The main Peronist party is the Justicialist Party, whose policies have significantly varied over time and across government administrations, but have generally been described as "a vague blend of nationalism and labourism", or populism.
Perón became Argentina's labour secretary after participating in the 1943 military coup and was elected president of Argentina in 1946. He introduced social programs that benefited the working class, supported labor unions and called for additional involvement of the state in the economy. In addition, he supported industrialists in an effort to facilitate harmony between labor and capital. Perón was very popular due to his leadership, and gained even more admiration through his wife Eva, who championed for the rights of migrant workers, the poor, and women, whose suffrage is partially due to Eva's involvement, until her death by cancer in 1952. Due to economic problems and political repression, the military overthrew Perón and banned the Justicialist Party in 1955; it was not until 1973 that open elections were held again in which Perón was re-elected president by 62%. Perón died in the following year, opening the way for his widow and vice president Isabel to succeed the presidency.
Perón's death left an intense power vacuum and the military promptly overthrew Isabel in 1976. Since the return to democracy in 1983, Peronist candidates have usually dominated general elections. Carlos Menem was elected in 1989 and served for two consecutive terms, until 1999. Menem moved the party to centre-right, with a focus on the privatization of state run enterprises, the adoption of free-market policies and establishing friendly international relations with the United States. After the anti-Peronist De La Rúa administration (1999-2001) collapsed, four interim Peronist leaders took over between 2001 and 2003 due to political turmoil during the Argentine Great Depression. After coming to power in the 2003 Argentine general election, center-left Peronist Néstor Kirchner restructured the Justicialist platform in a manner aimed to "[return] the Peronist Justice Party to its traditional center-left stance following a long detour to center-right neoliberalism under Carlos Menem", and advanced social democratic interpretations of Peronism. Kirchner served for only one term, while his wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, served two (having been elected in 2007 and re-elected in 2011), and from 2019 until 2023 was the vice president with Alberto Fernández as president, until the election of right-wing libertarian Javier Milei in the 2023 Argentine presidential election. As of 2023, Peronists have held the presidency in Argentina for 28 total years.

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