Adolfo Rodríguez Saá (; born 25 July 1947) is íguezSaáan Argentine Peronist politician. Born in a family that was highly influential in the history of the San Luis Province, he became the province's governor in 1983, after the end of the National Reorganization Process military dictatorship. He remained governor up to 2001, being re-elected in successive elections.
President Fernando de la Rúa resigned in that year, amid the December 2001 riots, and the Congress elected Rodríguez Saá as the president of Argentina. In response to the 1998–2002 Argentine great depression, he declared the highest sovereign default in history and resigned days later amid civil unrest.
The Congress elected a new president, Eduardo Duhalde, in order to complete the term of office of de la Rúa (but Duhalde failed to do so, and eventually that term was completed by Néstor Kirchner, instead). Rodríguez Saá ran for President subsequently in the 2003 and 2015 presidential elections, but he was not successful.
Early life
Rodríguez Saá was born to an important political family in San Luis. The Rodriguez Saá family is well known in the Province of San Luis and can be traced to the 19th century and to descendants of the federal caudillo Juan Saá, who fought in the battle of Pavón during the Argentine Civil War. Rodríguez Saá's grandfather and namesake Adolfo Rodríguez Saá and his great-uncle were both governors of the province, and his father was the police chief.
He attended the "Juan Pascual Pringles" school, which was associated with the National University of Cuyo. He studied law at the University of Buenos Aires, graduating in 1971. He worked as a teacher in his former school for two years. He was an editor of the anti-Peronist pamphlet "La voz de San Luis" (), but became a Peronist in 1969 during his studies in Buenos Aires. He joined the Peronist Youth in the year of his graduation and worked as their representative in San Luis.
The Peronist party, proscribed since 1955, was allowed to run for the 1973 elections. The Peronist party won the elections, and Héctor Cámpora became president. Rodríguez Saá became a provincial legislator, and led the Peronist deputies in the chamber. He joined the right-wing Peronist unions, led by Oraldo Britos. He opposed the governor Elías Adre, who was aligned with left-wing Peronism. After the 1976 Argentine coup d'état, he left politics and worked in a law firm with his brother.
Governor
The National Reorganization Process dictatorship came to an end in 1983, when Raúl Alfonsín won the 1983 elections. Rodríguez Saá was elected governor of San Luis in those elections, in a close contest with the Radical Civic Union. He was helped by the clergy of the province, who opposed the radical candidate because of his secularism.
As a governor, Rodríguez Saá attracted huge investments to the province, which led to the growth of local industries, public works, social services and tourism. Levels of employment and industrial production, as well as measures of scholastic achievement and crime-fighting success were higher than those of the country at large. He was a populist and authoritarian governor who was accused of nepotism, corruption and restricting freedom of the press. He united the governors of the smaller Argentine provinces in a front, called Frente Federal Solidario.
He ran in the primary elections of the Justicialist Party (PJ) for the 1989 presidential elections. Carlos Menem, governor of La Rioja, prevailed in both the primary and the main elections and became the new president of Argentina. Rodríguez Saá was elected to the Constituent Assembly that drafted the 1994 amendment of the Argentine Constitution. He attempted to run in the primary elections for the 1995 presidential elections against Menem, who was seeking re-election. Not seeing any chance of prevailing against the president, he abandoned his candidacy. He also attempted to run in the primary elections for the 1999 presidential elections, and resigned his candidacy again, this time on behalf of Eduardo Duhalde, governor of the Buenos Aires Province. Duhalde lost the elections to the radical Fernando de la Rúa, and Rodríguez Saá was again re-elected as governor. He attempted to divide the city of San Luis into four municipalities, as the mayor was a political rival, but had to drop the project because of the popular unrest generated by the proposal.