Nationality: | Argentine |
Office: | Ambassador of Argentina to Spain |
Term Start: | 8 March 2016 |
Term End: | 10 December 2019 |
Nominator: | Mauricio Macri |
Predecessor: | Carlos Bettini |
Successor: | Ricardo Alfonsín |
Office1: | National Deputy |
Term Start1: | 10 December 2009 |
Term End1: | 10 December 2013 |
Constituency1: | Misiones |
Term Start2: | 10 December 1999 |
Term End2: | 9 December 2001 |
Constituency2: | Misiones |
Term Start3: | 10 December 1987 |
Term End3: | 10 December 1991 |
Constituency3: | Misiones |
Office4: | President of Argentina |
Order4: | Acting |
Term Start4: | 21 December 2001 |
Term End4: | 23 December 2001 |
Predecessor4: | Fernando de la Rúa |
Successor4: | Adolfo Rodríguez Saá (interim) |
Office5: | Provisional President of the Senate |
Term Start5: | 10 December 2001 |
Term End5: | 30 December 2001 |
Predecessor5: | Mario Losada |
Successor5: | Juan Carlos Maqueda |
Office6: | National Senator |
Term Start6: | 10 December 2001 |
Term End6: | 10 December 2005 |
Constituency6: | Misiones |
Office7: | Governor of Misiones |
Term Start7: | 10 December 1991 |
Term End7: | 9 December 1999 |
Vicegovernor7: | Miguel Ángel Alterach Julio Alberto Ifrán |
Predecessor7: | Julio César Humada |
Successor7: | Carlos Rovira |
Birth Date: | 9 September 1951 |
Birth Place: | Apóstoles, Misiones |
Party: | Justicialist Party |
Profession: | Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina |
Signature: | Firma Puerta.svg |
Federico Ramón Puerta (pronounced as /es/; born 9 September 1951) is an Argentine Peronist politician who has served as a governor, national senator and deputy and briefly as President of Argentina in 2001.
Puerta was born in Apóstoles, Misiones Province. He attended the Universidad Católica Argentina in Buenos Aires and qualified as a civil engineer. However, he entered the family business of the cultivation of yerba maté, and became a successful businessman and millionaire.
Puerta was elected a national deputy for Misiones in 1987. In 1991 he was elected Governor of Misiones Province, re-elected in 1995 and served until 1999. He followed the neo-liberal economic model of President Carlos Menem, including privatising the provincial bank of which his own grandfather had been a founder.
In 1999 he was re-elected to the Chamber of Deputies and in 2001 he was elected to the Senate. In November of that year, he was elected provisory president of the Argentine Senate, constitutionally third in line to the nation's presidency.
Puerta served as the acting head of the executive branch of the country for two days on December 21–22, 2001. He came to that position in his capacity as President Pro Tempore of the Senate and, as there was no vice president, he was next in line to the nation's highest office when President Fernando de la Rúa resigned amid rioting. A week after giving up the presidency, Puerta resigned as leader of the Senate in order to avoid retaking the presidency, following a second institutional crisis.[1]
Puerta stood to be Governor of Misiones in 2003, but lost to his successor, Carlos Rovira. He retired from the Senate in 2005. He ran for governor of Misiones again in 2007, and was defeated in the October election, coming in third place with 15% of the vote.
Puerta is unmarried and has two children.