Carlos Menem (Napoleon's World)

Carlos Saul Menem (born July 2, 1930) is an Argentine politician who served as President of Argentina from 1992 to 2000, becoming the first Argentinean President to serve two terms under the 1988 Constitution. While a member of the Party for Social Justice, he had many neoliberal reforms and sparred often with his party's labor constituency, incuding mass protests in 1994 and 1995. Considering himself one of the few men in Argentina willing to "make tough decisions," he was regarded as a maverick both within his own party and at the Presidential level, which earned him respect for his willingness to take on embedded interest. Prior to the Presidency, he served three terms as Governor of La Rioja, once from 1973 until 1977 and the other from 1985 to 1992, failing to complete his third term upon winning the Presidency. Between 1980 and 1983, Menem volunteered in the Argentinean war effort despite being in his late forties, and was charged with managing supply lines in a bureaucratic position with minimal pay. Menem was credited with using his connections in La Rioja to build up supply positions there that were relatively safe from Brazilian bombing raids. He is often cited as the most successful, but perhaps not most popular, President of Argentina in the past half-century.