money borrowed by the Third World. Politically, the most heated debate involved the date of the following elections. Proposals ranged from March 2002 to October 2003, the end of De la Rúa's term. Rodríguez Saá's economic team came up with a scheme designed to preserve the convertibility regime, dubbed the "Third Currency" Plan. It consisted of creating a new, non-convertible currency, the Argentino, that would coexist with convertible pesos and US dollars. It would circulate as cash, or but not in checks, promissory notes, or other instruments, which could be denominated in pesos or dollars. It would be partially guaranteed with federally managed land to counterbalance inflationary tendencies. Argentines having legal status would be used to redeem all complementary currency already in circulation; their acceptance as a means of payment was quite uneven. It was hoped that convertibility would restore public confidence, and the non-convertible nature of this currency would allow for a measure of fiscal flexibility (unthinkable with pesos) to ameliorate the crippling recession. Critics called the plan merely a "controlled devaluation" but its advocates countered that since controlling a devaluation is perhaps its thorniest issue, that criticism was a praise in disguise. The plan had enthusiastic supporters among mainstream economists (the most well-known being perhaps Martín Redrado, a former Banco Central de la República Argentina president) citing technical arguments. However, it was not implemented because the Rodríguez Saá government lacked the required political support. Rodriguez Saá lost the support of his own Justicialist Party and resigned before the end of the year. The Legislative Assembly convened again, appointing Peronist Senator Eduardo Duhalde of Buenos Aires Province, who had been the runner-up in the 1999 race for the presidency. End of fixed exchange rate In January 2002, after much deliberation, Duhalde abandoned the fixed exchange rate that had been in place for ten years. In a matter of days, the peso lost a large part of its value in the unregulated market. A provisional "official" exchange rate was set at 1.4 pesos per US dollar. In addition to the corralito, the Ministry of Economy dictated the pesificación; all bank accounts denominated in dollars would be converted to pesos at an official rate. Deposits would be converted at 1.40 ARS per dollar and debt was converted on 1 to 1 basis. The exchange rate spiked as depositors converted their peso deposits back into US dollars. By October 2002, depositors who