Antonio Cafiero

He founded the Movement for Unity, Solidarity and Organization in September 1982, a reformist faction of the Justicialist Party, ahead of the 1983 return of democracy. The group, known as Renovación Peronista (Peronist Renewal), was defeated in the party's September 1983 nominating convention, however, by more conservative figures supported by Lorenzo Miguel of the Steelworkers' Union. Cafiero was elected to the Argentine Chamber of Deputies in 1985, and in 1987, Governor of Buenos Aires Province. Elected President of the Justicialist Party National Council, he ran in the May 1988 primary election for the upcoming presidential campaign. He failed to regain the support of the CGT, or to sway delegates from the smaller provinces, and lost to less well-known Carlos Menem, who subsequently won the 1989 general election.

Menem appointed Cafiero Ambassador to Chile in 1992, and Cafiero returned to elected office as a Senator in 1993. He took part in the convention negotiating the 1994 amendment of the Argentine Constitution, which allowed for Menem's re-election. The amended Argentine Constitution included article 129, which guaranteed Buenos Aires greater self-governance. The Indentente (appointed Mayor) was replaced by a Jefe de Gobierno (elected Mayor), and the city council by the Buenos Aires City Legislature. Shortly before the historic, June 30, 1996, elections to these posts, however, Senator Cafiero succeeded in limiting the city's autonomy by advancing National Law 24.588, which reserved control of the Argentine Federal Police (the federally administered city force), the Port of Buenos Aires and other faculties to the national government. The controversial bill, popularly known afterward as Ley Cafiero (the "Cafiero Law") was signed in 1996 by President Menem, remaining a sticking point between successive Presidents (most of whom have been Peronist) and Buenos Aires Mayors (none of whom have been).[6]

Cafiero was re-elected as Senator in 2001. The aging lawmaker, who had severe hearing loss by then, took leave to act as Cabinet Chief during the transitional presidency of Eduardo Camaño (2001–02), returning to the Senate and retiring in 2005.

Cafiero was formally accused in 2006, along with Isabel Perón and several of her former ministers, of involvement in the forced disappearance of a minor in 1976. President Isabel Perón and her cabinet had signed decrees on October 6, 1975, ordering "military and security operations that may be needed to annihilate subversive elements throughout the territory of the country" (see Dirty War for historical context).[7] Cafiero, during the Trial of the Juntas in 1985, had stated that the Isabel Perón government (which presided over the early phase of the Dirty War) believed that common police tactics were not enough to combat the guerrilla threat, and that he learned of human rights violations committed at the time only after Perón's overthrow in the March 1976 coup d'état.[8]

Cafiero served as President of COPPPAL, the Permanent Conference of Political Parties of Latin America and the Caribbean, from 2005 to 2011.[9]

He died on 13 October 2014 in Buenos Aires.[10]