Argentina will stop printing banknotes with pictures of populist heroine 'Evita' Peron and the disputed Falkland Islands, in a move away from the symbols favoured by its former leftist government. The politically charged image of Eva Peron - played by Madonna in a film of the popular stage musical 'Evita' - on the 100-peso note will be replaced with a picture of an endangered deer.
The outline of the contested islands, known in Spanish as the Malvinas, will be replaced by an Andean condor on the 50-peso bill. The Argentine central bank made the announcement last week, just over a month after conservative President Mauricio Macri took office. Macri has launched a series of reforms to reverse policies of his leftist predecessor, Cristina Kirchner.
She was an heir of the "Peronist" political movement that has dominated Argentine politics for decades. Eva Duarte Peron was the second wife of the movement's figurehead, former president Juan Peron. Kirchner was also a combative defender of Argentina's territorial claim to the British-governed Falklands, or Malvinas. Macri has called for a "new era" in relations with Britain, which routed Argentina in a brief but bloody war over the islands in 1982.
Kirchner was behind the idea to put Evita and the Falklands on banknotes. Replacing those images with pictures of native Argentine wildlife would offer "common ground where all Argentines can feel represented by the national currency", the central bank said in a statement. The bank has also said it will launch new banknotes of 200, 500 and 1,000 pesos this year. Days after taking office, Macri scrapped Kirchner's currency controls, prompting a sharp devaluation of the peso against the dollar.