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Great Front
Topics: Political parties in Argentina
The Great Front was a left-wing political party in Argentina in the early 1990s.
The party was set up by a group of Justicialist Party members of the Argentine Chamber of Deputies and other leftwingers who were annoyed at the neoliberal policies of the government of President Carlos Menem, most notably Carlos Alvarez. In 1990 the rebel Justicialists, having formed Fredejuso, came together with the Communist Party of Argentina and others in a loose coalition. Alvarez proposed forming a unified party and dissolving the constituent members, thus automatically excluding the Communists, who left.
In May 1993 they joined with Frente del Sur, a party set up by film-maker Pino Solanas, to form the Frente Grande. Alvarez was re-elected a deputy on behalf of the Frente.
In the 1994 elections, the party's list in the city of Buenos Aires gained 38% of the vote and several deputies were elected around the country, includin Alvarez and Solanas. Solanas left the party a short while later over personal differences.
In spring 1994, Alvarez led the Frente Grande into a new alliance, creating the Front for a Country in Solidarity - FrePaSo. FrePaSo would continue the success of the Frente Grande and propel Alvarez to be vice-president of the country. The Frente Grande continued to be a force in Buenos Aires politics, but has become largely marginalised with the collapse of FrePaSo; its members have largely joined the new Support for an Egalitarian Republic (ARI) party or returned to the Peronists under centre-left President Nestor Kirchner.
At the 2005 legislative elections, sections of the remaining Front joined the Encuentro Amplio with other left-wing parties in Buenos Aires and Buenos Aires Province. The coalition did badly and lost its existing national representation.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Great Front
