Arturo Puricelli (born October 8, 1947) is an Argentine lawmaker. He served as Governor of
Santa Cruz Province (1983–87), and as the country's Minister of Defense (2010–13) and Security (2013).
Life and times
Arturo Antonio Puricelli was born in
Santa Cruz Province, Argentina
Santa Cruz Province ( es, Provincia de Santa Cruz, , 'Holy Cross') is a province of Argentina, located in the southern part of the country, in Patagonia. It borders Chubut Province to the north, and Chile to the west and south, with an Atlantic c ...
. He enrolled at the
National University of the Littoral
The National University of Litoral ( es, Universidad Nacional del Litoral, UNL) is a public university in Argentina. It is based in Santa Fe, the capital of Santa Fe Province. It has colleges and other academic facilities in Esperanza, Reconqu ...
, and became affiliated with the populist
Justicialist Party. Earning a
law degree in 1973, he returned to Santa Cruz, was named
Inspector General of the Provincial Justice Ministry, and in 1975, was appointed Minister of Social Policy.
He started a private law practice, Puricelli & Associates, after the
March 1976 coup, when nearly all elected officials were removed. The dictatorship ultimately called for
elections in 1983, and Puricelli secured his party's nomination as a candidate for governor of Santa Cruz. The victorious Puricelli was among the youngest and, with 56% of the vote, the third-most decisively elected governor that year.
His rival in the primaries, a young banking attorney,
Néstor Kirchner
Néstor Carlos Kirchner (; 25 February 195027 October 2010) was an Argentine lawyer and politician who served as the President of Argentina from 2003 to 2007, Governor of Santa Cruz Province from 1991 to 2003, Secretary General of UNASUR and ...
, was appointed head of the Provincial Social Security Fund by the new governor. Puricelli hoped this might earn his fledgling administration greater backing from Kirchner's supporters, but the move backfired when in April 1984, the latter refused the governor's request for borrowing from the fund to cover the provincial deficit. As governor, Puricelli pursued a greater share of the hundreds of millions of dollars in
fossil fuel royalties generated largely by the then-state owned oil concern,
YPF, and sued the federal government to that effect. He also strove to diversify his remote province's economy, and established the resort town of
El Chaltén
El Chaltén is a small mountain village in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina, Santa Cruz Province, Argentina. It is located on the riverside of Rio de las Vueltas, within the Los Glaciares National Park (section ''Reserva Nacional Zona Viedma'') near ...
by way of promoting
tourism
Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism mor ...
.
[''La Nación'': Vaivenes de una relación difícil con Kirchner (15 December 2010)]
Constitutionally barred from seeking re-election upon the end of his term in 1987, Puricelli was elected President of the Santa Cruz chapter of the Justicialist Party. He supported veteran party figure
Antonio Cafiero, who had just been elected Governor of
Buenos Aires Province, as his party's nominee ahead of the
1989 presidential elections, and obtained the support of numerous Santa Cruz Justicialists, including Kirchner, for Cafiero's Renewal Front ticket. The support of the new governor, Ricardo del Val, for a
dark horse candidate
A dark horse is a previously lesser-known person or thing that emerges to prominence in a situation, especially in a competition involving multiple rivals, or a contestant that on paper should be unlikely to succeed but yet still might.
Origin
Th ...
,
La Rioja
La Rioja () is an autonomous community and province in Spain, in the north of the Iberian Peninsula. Its capital is Logroño. Other cities and towns in the province include Calahorra, Arnedo, Alfaro, Haro, Santo Domingo de la Calzada, an ...
Governor
Carlos Menem, proved decisive, however, and Menem won 80% of the Santa Cruz vote during the 1988 primary. He became the Justicialist nominee, and was elected president the following year.
Puricelli was elected to the
Argentine Chamber of Deputies during the same elections. He ran again for governor in
1991
File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phi ...
, but was defeated in the primaries by Kirchner, who at the time enjoyed President Menem's support. Having refused to campaign for Menem during the general election, Puricelli adopted a more pragmatic stance towards the president during the latter's 1989–99 administration, and in 1996, he was named head of the state
postal service, ''Encotesa''; Puricelli served in a caretaker capacity ahead of the postal carrier's 1997 privatization.
He returned to Santa Cruz and in 1997 was elected to the Provincial Lower House, where despite his differences with Governor Kirchner, he voted in favor of allowing the governor to manage the province's growing oil and gas royalties on an
off-budget basis. He later returned to
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...
as vice-president of the National Airports Regulatory Agency (ORSNA).
Puricelli joined the center-left
Alliance
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
, at the time the main party in opposition. Still at ORSNA when he switched parties in 1999, this gambit resulted in his dismissal, as well as in his being expelled from the Justicialist Party. He ran as a candidate for governor in
that year's elections, and was again defeated by Kirchner.
[
Following the collapse of the Alliance government at the end of 2001, however, Puricelli returned to the Justicialist fold as secretary of provincial affairs for President ]Eduardo Duhalde
Eduardo Alberto Duhalde (; born 5 October 1941) is an Argentine Peronist politician who served as the interim President of Argentina from January 2002 to May 2003. He also served as Vice President and Governor of Buenos Aires in the 1990s.
B ...
. This relationship, too, soured when Duhalde announced his endorsement of Governor Kirchner for presidential elections held in 2003, and Puricelli resigned his post. He ran unsuccessfully for Congress, and retired to his ranch in scenic Los Antiguos
Los Antiguos is a town in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina, located on the south shore of Lago Buenos Aires. It lies 2 km from the border with Chile, and 8 km from the Chilean town of Chile Chico. It is connected to Perito Moreno and ...
, where he raised sheep
Sheep or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are domesticated, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus '' Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticated ...
and cultivated cherry orchards.[
Declaring himself to harbor "irreconcilable differences" with Kirchner, who became president, Puricelli would become Kirchner's surprise pick to head the state-owned ]Fabricaciones Militares
Fabricaciones Militares, the full name is Fabricaciones Militares Sociedad del Estado (Spanish for Military Industries State Corporation), is a state-owned Argentine arms manufacturer based in Buenos Aires. The company was a government agency un ...
, the nation's largest defense contractor
The arms industry, also known as the arms trade, is a global industry which manufactures and sells weapons and military technology. It consists of a commercial industry involved in the research and development, engineering, production, and se ...
, in 2006. Following the designation of Defense Minister Nilda Garré
Nilda Celia Garré (born November 3, 1945) is an Argentine lawyer, politician, and diplomat. She was Minister of Defense during the presidency of the late Nestor Kirchner and remained in this position, and as Minister of Security, under Preside ...
at the head of the powerful new Ministry of Security, Puricelli was appointed to replace her on December 15, 2010.[ The president nominated him to the post of Minister of Security on May 30, 2013. Following a cabinet reshuffle in December, Puricelli stepped down; he was succeeded by Emergency Assistance Secretary María Cecilia Rodríguez.]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Puricelli, Arturo
1947 births
Living people
People from Río Gallegos, Santa Cruz
Argentine people of Italian descent
National University of the Littoral alumni
20th-century Argentine lawyers
Justicialist Party politicians
Governors of Santa Cruz Province, Argentina
Members of the Argentine Chamber of Deputies elected in Santa Cruz
Defense ministers of Argentina