Ricardo Luis Alfonsín is an Argentine lawyer, academic and politician prominent in the Radical Civic Union.
Background
His father, Raúl Alfonsín, was the President of Argentina from 1983 to 1989. Ricardo Luis Alfonsín was born in Chascomús son of María Lorenza Barreneche 1926-2016 and Raúl Alfonsín 1927-2009. The latter was at the time a local lawyer and councilman active in the centrist Radical Civic Union (UCR).
He married Cecilia Plorutti, and the couple had four children during the 1980s.
Though his father had been elected president in 1983, they avoided involvement in politics at the time.
Education
University of Buenos Aires.
Career
He first rose to elected office in 1999, as a Buenos Aires Provincial Deputy, and remained in the post until 2003. The UCR in tatters following the 2001 resignation of President Fernando de la Rúa, Alfonsín was named head of the party"s foreign policy office following the end of his term in the legislature. The move was unconventional because the UCR, on which ticket he ran, had endorsed independent candidate Roberto Lavagna in the 2007 presidential race, and Lavagna, in turn, backed Congressman Jorge Sarghini for governor.
Alfonsín lost his father on March 31, 2009, when three days of national mourning were declared.
The list came in third in the Province of Buenos Aires, though it secured enough votes to elect both to the Lower House of Congress, where they would be seated on December 10. Alfonsín clinched his party"s nomination for the 2011 presidential elections when Senator Ernesto Sanz withdrew on April 28.
The Civic and Social Agreement alliance with GEN and the Socialist Party was broken in June, so he endorsed the Federal Peronism candidate Francisco de Narváez for Governor of Buenos Aires and appointed former Central Bank President Javier González Fraga as running mate. They placed third with 11% of the vote.
Politics
He first actively entered politics in 1993, and was elected delegate to the UCR leadership convention, during which his father was returned to the party"s presidency after being turned out in 1991. The tragedy led Alfonsín to retire from politics for a time, though in 2007, he made a surprise bid for the office of Governor of Buenos Aires Province, naming veteran actor Luis Brandoni as his running mate. A month earlier, he formed an alliance with former fellow UCR lawmaker Margarita Stolbizer (who had established her own party, GEN) and accepted the second spot in the GEN/UCR party list ahead of the June 28, 2009 mid-term elections.
As part of a compromise with the ruling Front for Victory caucus (representing Kirchnerism), the latter would retain the Presidency of the Lower House, and Alfonsín was elected 1st Vice President of the body on December 4.
