BUENOS AIRES, Dec 31: Argentina will ring in the New Year in a power vacuum after the week-old president unexpectedly resigned amid widening political and economic turmoil.

Argentina’s congress was to meet on Tuesday to appoint a new leader after the surprise resignation on Sunday night of interim president Adolfo Rodriguez Saa.

The next in line of succession, Senate leader Ramon Puerta, also quit.

In charge of executive power for the interim was the Eduardo Camano, leader of the Chamber of Deputies, who convened a joint session of the legislature to formally accept Rodriguez Saa’s resignation and appoint a new president.

Senator Eduardo Duhalde, of the same Peronist Party as Rodriguez Saa, was favoured as a top candidate for interim president, Camano said.

Meanwhile, Argentines’ preparing for an uncertain new year, queued up once again at the banks, which at the request of the former president were to stay open until 2300 GMT on Monday. The banks were overwhelmed last week by depositors trying to extract what cash they could despite restrictions that limited withdrawals to 1,000 dollars a month.

It was mass protests over those restrictions that drove Fernando de la Rua from office Dec 20. Argentines returned to the streets on Friday — just five days into Rodriguez Saa’s administration — to once again demand an end to the limits, as well as the resignation of government officials widely seen as corrupt.

But in the end it was the president himself who quit.

Rodriguez Saa announced his in a dramatic televised address late on Sunday to the nation, after spending just one week in office. His resignation was effective immediately, he said.

“I did not have any other choice,” Rodriguez Saa said, saying the leaders of his Peronist party had turned their backs on him.

Nine of the party’s 14 power-brokering governors snubbed the now-former president by refusing to attend an emergency meeting he called on Sunday to discuss ways to reshape his cabinet and economic policy, following a massive anti-government protest on Friday.

Rodriguez Saa said he had telephoned Senate leader Ramon Puerta prior to his address to inform him of the decision — but about one hour later Puerta, too, had resigned.

Puerta served as president for 48 hours after De la Rua resigned two years into his four-year term.

Rodriguez Saa, a former provincial governor, was appointed president on Dec 23. Congress gave him a three-month mandate until presidential elections could be held in March. He now returns to private life, having resigned his governorship to assume the presidency.

At issue in the internal Peronist party dispute was whether Rodriguez Saa would allow the March 3 elections to go forward, or instead attempt serve out the remainder of de la Rua’s term through Dec 2003.

The surprise resignations capped a day of intense political manoeuvring in which Rodriguez Saa sought to quell growing popular unrest and keep the country’s economy afloat.

In his address to the nation, Rodriguez Saa said he had planned to announce his economic plan for the country including a budget of 38 billion dollars.

He also listed the measures he took in his seven days in office, including a suspension of payments on the nation’s 132-billion-dollar, creating 230,000 temporary jobs, slashing spending on administrative government costs, and reducing the maximum government salary to 3,000 dollars a month.

He did not however mention his controversial plan to issue a third currency, which had been due to begin circulating on Jan 15 alongside the dollar and the peso. Analysts had warned the new currency was akin to devaluation, and could have led to a cycle of hyper-inflation.

The Argentine capital remained calm following the resignations, after disturbances one day earlier left a dozen police officers wounded, six of them seriously. Thirty-three people were detained in the rioting.—AFP