BUENOS AIRES – Argentine President Fernando de la Rua died at the age of 81 at the hospital in Buenos Aires, where he was hospitalized in recent days due to health problems, according to local media reports. current president, Mauricio Macri.
“I regret the death of former President Fernando de la Rua, whose democratic trajectory deserves the recognition of all Argentines,” Macri wrote in his Twitter account. “We accompany your family at this time,” he added.
De la Rúa has died at the Fleming hospital where he was hospitalized in an “extremely serious” state due to the deterioration of his health problems, according to the state agency Telam. The exmandatario had kidney and heart problems and in 2018 he had suffered a heart attack.
Born in 1937 in the city of Córdoba in the bosom of a family of upper middle class and grandson of a Galician, De la Rua began his political militancy in the Argentine radicalism in his university years, while he was studying law. In 1973 he became a senator, leaving politics behind the military coup.
With the return to democracy, in 1983 tried unsuccessfully to be the candidate of the Radical Civic Union (UCR) to the Presidency, returning to be elected senator. In 1996, he was the first head of government in Buenos Aires elected by direct vote, making the jump to the Casa Rosada in 1999, which put an end to ten years of Carlos Menem in the Presidency.
However, his mandate was brief. De la Rúa submitted his resignation on December 20, 2001, after the serious economic crisis in which the country was engulfed degenerated into social protests that resulted in numerous deaths and injuries. (Europa Press)
