Jorge Telerman - Political Career

Political Career

Telerman's political career started at an early age. He was a student delegate in the secondary school, and a member of the Young Communist Federation of Argentina (FEDE). Influenced by his father's political ideas, and sympathetic to its poupulist platform, he became affiliated with the Peronist Party, in 1974. Exiled in Europe during a subsequent, right-wing dictatorship, he returned in 1982 and resumed his political activities ahead of the imminent return to democracy. He was introduced to longtime Peronist leader Antonio Cafiero, and he organized the Movimiento Unidad, Solidaridad y Organización (MUSO), searching and advocating for an internal renewal of the party. There, he started his long political career in Peronism, working as communications director and spokesperson for Cafiero, who was a successful candidate for Governor of the Province of Buenos Aires, in 1987.

Guido di Tella, the newly designated Ambassador to Washington, named Telerman his press attaché in 1990. He later took on various diplomatic responsibilities: he was Secretary for Institutional Relations and Spokesman to the Foreign Affairs Office between 1991 and 1992; in 1993 he became the Press Attaché of the Argentine Embassy in París, and from 1995 to 1998 a Consultant to the General Secretary of the Organization of American States (OEA), former Colombian President Dr. César Gaviria, as well as Public Information Director of the OEA. In 1998 he was appointed Ambassador to Cuba. He returned to Buenos Aires to be an advisor and consultant for the unsuccessful presidential campaign of Peronist candidate Eduardo Duhalde, and in 1999 he was elected to the Argentine Chamber of Deputies, representing Buenos Aires.

Between 2000 and 2003 he held an executive position as Secretary of Culture of the City of Buenos Aires. He had a very prolific administration, mainly because of the multiple activities he undertook in this area, and the national and international attention these activities helped bring to the City of Buenos Aires, in the cultural field. He was sworn as Vice Mayor to Aníbal Ibarra on December 10, 2003. The Vice Mayor oversaw the Secretariat for Social Development and was President of the Buenos Aires City Legislature. At the end of 2005, he resumed his office as Vice Mayor and President of the Buenos Aires City Legislature. The tragic República Cromañón nightclub fire in late 2004 ultimately resulted in Mayor Ibarra's March 13, 2006, impeachment, however, upon which Telerman became Mayor of Buenos Aires. He decided to run for re-election as Mayor but came in third, with 20.7% of the votes. He placed behind a candidate advanced by President Néstor Kirchner (Education Minister Daniel Filmus), with 23.7%, and businessman Mauricio Macri, whose Republican Proposal (PRO) Party won with 45.6% of the total votes. Telerman relinquished his office on December 9, 2007.