of the City Council) for the PSP. From this platform he developed a trajectory that led him to present himself as a candidate for the municipal elections of 1995. Mayor of Rosario Binner was elected Mayor of Rosario in 1995 and then re-elected in 1999, ending his second four-year term in 2003. He was candidate to the governorship of the province of Santa Fe, obtaining a larger percentage of the popular vote than any of the other candidates, but the controversial voting system in place at the time (Ley de Lemas) caused the Socialist Party to lose the election to the Peronist Party. The eight years of the Binner administration in Rosario were marked by several guidelines: Decentralization and emphasis on the citizen's rule: The city was divided into several large districts, moving the bureaucratic structure from the Municipality to the peripheral barrios (neighbourhoods), and implementing mechanisms of direct democracy. Emphasis on the public sphere (health, education, cultural activities) and public welfare. The administration's Health Plan was acknowledged by the Pan-American Health Organization as a model for the rest of Latin America. Positioning of Rosario as a strategically placed metropolis with a vast area of economic and geopolitical influence. Binner was a Founding Member and Executive Secretary of Mercociudades (cities of the Mercosur), President of the Ibero-American Center for Urban Strategic Development (CIDEU), and President of the Argentine Municipalities Federation. On December 8, 2003, months after the end of Binner's second term, the United Nations acknowledged the people and the government of Rosario as a model of democratic governance among 257 Latin American cities. Hermes Binner was succeeded in office by one of his former municipal officials, Miguel Lifschitz, who has continued and developed the policies outlined above, and was re-elected in 2007. Other activities Binner was a member of the National Table of the Socialist Party and the Secretary General of the Santa Fe Federation for the same. He was also the director of the Rosario's Municipal and Provincial Studies Center, an institution for political and academic formation with professionals of diverse disciplines debating current issues and policies. National Deputy Binner was a candidate for a seat in the National Chamber of Deputies (the Lower House of the Argentine Congress) for the Progressive, Civic and Social Front, a Santa Fe political coalition (which includes the Socialist Party (PS), members of the Radical Civic Union (UCR), Support for an Egalitarian