Héctor Cavallero

Who is Héctor Cavallero?

Héctor Cavallero, nicknamed El Tigre, "The Tiger", is an Argentine politician, who was mayor of Rosario and a member of the Argentine Chamber of Deputies for the province of Santa Fe.

Cavallero was born in Las Parejas, Santa Fe, but went to high school in the General Paz Military Liceum in Córdoba, and studied Biochemistry at the Universidad Nacional del Litoral.

Cavallero was first elected mayor of the large city of Rosario, in southern Santa Fe, in 1989, for the Popular Socialist Party. Former mayor Horacio Usandizaga, a Radical, had publicly vowed to resign if Carlos Menem was elected President of Argentina. Upon Menem's success in the 1989 election and Raúl Alfonsín early departure from office, Usandizaga kept his word, and Cavallero was set to complete his term. After the remaining two years, Cavallero was reelected for the 1991–1995 period.

Despite his affiliation, Cavallero eventually decided to align himself with the Justicialist Menem administration. He ran for governor of Santa Fe on the 1995 election along other Justicialist candidates, under the electoral system called Ley de Lemas, which allowed several factions of the same party to present candidates for the main election and add up their votes. Horacio Usandizaga presented himself for governor and obtained the majority of votes, but the system, however, ended up favouring the "pure" Justicialist candidate Jorge Obeid, whose votes were supplemented by Cavallero's.