Carlos Álvarez (vice-president)

Carlos Alberto "Chacho" Álvarez (born on December 26, 1948 in Buenos Aires) is an Argentine politician; he was Vice-President of Argentina during part of President Fernando de la Rúa's mandate, and currently heads the Mercosur Secretariat.

Álvarez finished his degree in history at Buenos Aires University. He was an assessor at the Regional Economies Commission of the National Senate from 1983 to 1989. That year he was elected as National Deputy for the Justicialist Party, but he split from the party shortly afterwards because of disagreements with President Carlos Menem, creating an independent block known as "The Group of the Eight".

In 1991 Álvarez joined a group of politicians of different progressive parties, as well as former Justicialists, to create the Frente Grande coalition party. He was again elected congressman for the 1993-1997 period, as well as a member of the Constitutional Convention that modified the constitution in 1994, both as a member of the Frente Grande party.In 1994 he took part in the creation of the FrePaSo party. Candidate for Vice-President alongside Jose Octavio Bordón, they obtained second place in the 1995 presidential elections.

In 1997, FrePaSo joined the Unión Civica Radical to form the Alliance for Work, Justice and Education (usually known as the "Alianza"). Álvarez was elected once again for the Chamber of Deputies, this time within the "Alianza" in 1997. He became vice-president in the 1999 presidential elections with Fernando de la Rúa, but resigned his post on October 6, 2000, [ [http://archives.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/americas/10/06/argentina.politics.02.ap/ Political uproar in Argentina as vice president resigns] , CNN, 6/Oct/2000.] due to discrepancies in the election of the ministers. He retired from public life for five years until his appointment to Mercosur in December 2005.

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