This article comments on the presidential elections in Argentina which will be held on May 14, 1989. This will mark the first major Latin American election after riots in Venezuela against austerity measures imposed by President Carlos Andrés Pérez. So the outcome will be an important barometer of popular sentiment in the debt-laden region. Front-runner Carlos S. Menem, the Peronist governor of La Rioja province, is a free spender who is unlikely to take the hard steps needed to revitalize Argentina's stagnant economy and get foreign creditors' help in restructuring its $59 billion debt. As the presidential candidate of the opposition Justicialist Party, the Peronist movement's formal name, Menem attracts voters to blame Alfonsin and his Radical Civic Union party for falling living standards. Nevertheless, Radical Party candidate Eduardo C. Angeloz, the pragmatic governor of Córdoba province, appears to be narrowing Menem's lead to a range of 5 percent to 10 percent in current polls, down from 15 percent to 20 percent in early February 1989. Angeloz is a colorless campaigner. But he is offering a strategy for modernizing Argentina's protected economy with market-opening steps, spurs to foreign investment, and privatization of such key sectors as communications, energy, and transport. By contrast, Menem proposes few clear-cut policies and often contradicts himself in bidding for support from key groups. He endorses privatization but has assured right-wing union bosses who support him that state-run businesses will not be cut back.