Fallen economy chief Domingo Cavallo, who disappeared from public view after quitting a week ago amid Argentina's worst civil unrest in a decade, accepted on Wednesday he had failed and said history would be his judge.
Cavallo, who long had a reputation as one of the emerging market world's most renowned and creative economists, who reportedly had designs on the presidency himself, said he was now going to rest and devote himself to writing his memoirs.
"I worked with all my soul, all my ability, all my strength and all my dedication to try to solve [Argentina's] problems," the Harvard-educated former minister told local television program A Dos Voces.
"I obviously didn't manage it ? History will tell."
Cavallo was brought down by his own drastic austerity measures that slashed state workers' salaries, increased taxes, curbed banking freedoms -- and outraged a public that erupted into a fit of rioting and looting that left 27 dead.
There was nothing he could do to help jump-start growth in Latin America's No. 3 economy, creaking under the weight of US$132 billion in public debt, cut off from international markets and now paying the price for decades of corruption.
Cavallo, who fled to southern Argentina over Christmas after hundreds of protesters gathered outside his house during last week's bloody revolt that toppled the government of former President Fernando de la Rua, cannot leave the country because of an unrelated court order.
De la Rua has also disappeared from the public eye.
Cavallo commended Argentina's new interim government for not giving in to pressure to devalue the peso -- which he himself pegged at par to the dollar a decade ago -- and said it was important a new third currency due to be introduced is not allowed to depreciate quickly.
New economy chief Rodolfo Frigeri is printing new "argentinos," the new currency which will circulate alongside the peso and the dollar, to pay state salaries.
However, while Frigeri has vowed the peso will not be devalued, he was cited by one local paper as saying it would herald an "orderly exit" from Cavallo's 'convertibility' dollar peg regime -- which tamed hyperinflation in the early 1990s but also made Argentina one of the world's most expensive economies to do business in.
Many blame the peg for Argentina's stubborn recession, which is now in its fourth year.
Devaluation "would be very bad for the people," Cavallo said. "The important thing is that [the third currency] does not lose value quickly."
Critics say Cavallo failed to win over Wall Street investors and the IMF during combative trips abroad, mistakenly believing his name alone would provide enough credibility to make risky reforms.
His frantic struggle to shore up Argentina as it headed toward the biggest debt default in history -- now a given after the new interim government suspended Argentina's crippling foreign debt payments -- has taken its toll on the unorthodox Cavallo.
"I am going to rest, because obviously I have been through a very tense period," he said.
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