Blonde female singer fuels Raúl Alfonsín's legend

By Ignacio Zuleta

Blonde singer Daniela Mori (born Pérez) yesterday helped carving out a legend: she confessed she had had an affair with former president Raúl Alfonsín when she was an 18-year old starlet in musical group Las Primas. This TV appearance, triggered by the promotion of her new album -"The King of Chocolate", a tribute to businessman Ricardo Fort-, shocked not only the members of the local show biz, but also the political actors who remained in silence for several hours.

Radical party spokesmen attributed this so far unbelievable story to a political maneuver carried out by intelligent agents aimed at tarnishing local candidate such as Ricardo Alfonsín, who has inherited the suits, the moustache, the traits, the voice and even the library from his father. This legend will be part of his heritage.

Yesterday afternoon, those same Radical party spokesmen informed about meetings held by UCR members and SIDE Intelligence Agency officials, who denied any connection to blonde Daniela and showed their disgust in relation to this event. The SIDE Intelligence Agency, as most of UCR party members, laughed at this romours because they all know how this kind of events actually enlarge candidates' popular image.

Alfonsín's relatives and members of his closest circle failed to reply to Daniela's comments. As usual in other charismatic politicians, the above mentioned closest circle praises the virtues of the great figure and is certainly not willing to let someone open the doors of Alfonsín's private life.

"That is not possible, at that moment Raúl was surrounded by other women who would have beaten her," someone said in reference to Alfonsín's widow Lorenza Barreneche or his private secretary Margarita Ronco.

Those who really knew him actually admit former president Raúl Alfonsín was a "home a femme", a true courtly gentleman but also an old-fashioned reserved tight-lipped gentleman. How did the man who failed to keep secrets, such as the implementation of the Austral economic plan or the Pact of Olivos, manage to seal this relationship with wax, if it actually existed at all?

Alfonsín himself used to tell how he once approached to another blonde woman during a cocktail party in Spain, to find out 'she' was actually the transvestite actor Bibi Anderssen, an 80's movie start in Pedro Almodóvar's films.

"A woman's heart may hold deep secrets," Daniela told gossip journalist Jorge Rial. "I really don't know why I am telling you all this, but this is how it happened," she said. Daniela added that she had had an emotional, admirational relationship with Raúl Alfonsín. "I surely gave him something he appreciated and he certainly gave me something I needed," Daniela said.

This TV appearance managed to agitate the last moments of MERCOSUR summit and triggered conversations between the government and members of the opposition in order to make clear there wouldn't be any political profiting from this event.

The private life of every public man is usually under everybody's eye, especially when this public figure is dead, because ties of fidelity weaken and passing of time explains almost everything. Although they wouldn't confess it, politicians and other public figures consider it is better to go down in history because of blondes than unpaid debts, betrayals or sordid events (a biography on filmmaker Leopoldo Torre Nilsson reported that a sexual gadget was found in his safe).

"He was a champ," both members of the opposition and pro-government congressmen yesterday said. They are all waiting for the morals in Elisa Carrió's comments; the Civic Coalition leader claims to have been in loved with Raúl Alfonsín. Being a Catholic herself, Carrió will forgive the former president and say this issue gives an additional charm to Alfonsín. Argentina is a catholic yet not puritan country embracing outpourings of private life, which are usually condemned in Anglo-Saxon nations.

Some time ago, many members of the UCR party who used to gather at the Castelar Hotel said that former president Arturo Frondizi -almost an ascetic- used to have a secret affair with a lady. Radical leader Oscar López Serrot replied: "Don't spread the rumour, otherwise you would end up magnifying it."

Just a couple of house ago, Ricardo Alfonsín described UCR party to be more "like ethics rather than an ideology itself", which are fortunately two broad concepts in Argentina. "There are certain things we just don't do," UCR party members usually say when people ask them for a political definition. Now we all know where the limit is.


Translated by Jimena Gibert