Frustrated Argentines take business into own hands

"This will be hard job to pull off," he says. "But we have all the right people with all the right skills, and we know how to do it."

Most Argentines seem to sympathize with the do-it-yourself work ethic that these co-ops are preaching and practicing. Some lawyers have volunteered to help them through the legal maze, and the government has set up an office to help those who want to reopen closed businesses.

Not all takeovers have been a complete success, however. Legal battles between owners and workers rage on in the courts. Earlier this week, workers of the occupied Brukman clothing factory clashed with police over an eviction notice; dozens were injured and arrested.

The city granted the Bauen co-op a 90-day lease, a short amount of time to put the long-dormant hotel back in order. Mr. Vizgarra and his colleagues say they have been so busy washing linens, scrubbing floors, and repairing the electrical circuits that they haven't given much thought to who will be their next president.

Neither, apparently, have many Argentines. Despite feverish campaigning, none of the five candidates has garnered more than 22 percent in the opinion polls, and none is expected to earn the 45 percent needed to avoid a second-round runoff.

"A lot of people have concluded that they can't expect much from a new government, therefore they shouldn't care much who gets elected," says Mr. Gervasoni.

The one candidate who is universally loved or loathed here is Carlos Saul Menem. Mr. Menem ruled the country with power and pizzazz from 1989 to 1999, when many Argentines benefited from the peso's peg to the dollar and an array of privatization measures. Many now contend that Menem is to blame for Argentina's current economic quandary.

"Why am I going to vote for Menem? Because he is the best of the worst," says Alejandro Hugo Lopez, a Menem campaign volunteer. Despite allegations of corruption against the ex-president, Mr. Lopez says that he is the right man to lead Argentina out of chaos.

The two others running within the splintered Peronist Party, Adolfo Rodriguez Saa and Nestor Kirchner, are both experienced provincial governors. Mr. Kirchner has the endorsement of President Eduardo Duhalde, but that hasn't helped him in the polls. Mr. Saa was president for one week in December 2001, following bloody riots and the country's multibillion-dollar debt default.

The Peronists' most vocal critic is Ricardo Lopez Murphy, a US-educated economist who promises a progressive fiscal policy. Leftist-candidate Elisa Carrio has been praised for her fresh ideas, but it not expected to pose a real threat.

For Pereyra, the former maid, Sunday's election is the furthest thing from her mind; getting the Hotel Bauen back on its feet and providing for her six children and three grandchildren is top priority. "The politicians that we have, they don't help us at all...." she says, still shaking the small cardboard donation box. "But this movement isn't political; we are workers who are fighting because we don't have jobs, nothing more."

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