In the good old days, Carlos Saul Menem raced around the country in his red Ferrari, kicked around a football with Diego Maradona, played golf with George Bush and dined with Madonna, convinced that his winning streak would last forever.
Menem was twice elected President of Argentina (1989-99), a post he would still hold today, he believes, were it not for a new constitutional bar on immediate re-election to office.
The former president is still the leader of the opposition Peronist party and has announced his bid for the presidency in 2003.
The playboy politician recently married former Miss Universe, Cecilia Bocollo, a Chilean beauty queen half his age. They threw a fiesta for 5,000 in Anillaco, Menem's home town in northern Argentina.
Bocollo is a famous television personality in her homeland and a vocal supporter of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.
Menem, aged 71, and Bocollo, should have been in Paris by now, en route to Damascus on a lavish honeymoon but instead they are perusing 20,000 pages of legal documents, praying their expert lawyers can get them out of a serious fix.
The Menem fairy tale came to an abrupt end a fortnight ago when a Buenos Aires judge ordered his arrest, accusing him of masterminding illegal arms sales to Croatia and Ecuador during his first term in office.
Between 1991 and 1995, Argentina sold 6,500 tons of weapons to Panama and Venezuela on Menem's orders. But prosecutors charge that those weapons ended up in Croatia and Ecuador, violating a UN arms embargo on the warring Balkan state and compromising Argentina's role as mediator in Ecuador's border conflict with Peru.
Menem's former brother-in-law and senior aide Emir Yoma, his former defence minister and childhood friend Erman Gonzalez, and his ex-army chief Martin Balza are all behind bars on the same charges.
Menem and his ministers admit they signed authorization for the arms sales but say they did not know the shipments meant for Venezuela and Panama were being diverted. However Menem must have been aware that Panama has had no army since the US invasion in December 1989.
The indignant former president refused to answer any of the 200 questions put to him during his first court appearance two weeks ago.
Menem justified the illegal arms sales as "a legitimate means of bringing Argentina in line with other world powers". Crucial evidence about the illegal arms sales was destroyed in a suspicious explosion at a military installation in Cordoba, northern Argentina, in 1995.
Menem's ex-wife, Zulema Yoma, turned up to give evidence against her former husband last week, accompanied by their daughter, Zulemita, who took on the role of First Lady after the marriage collapsed.
Menem married Yoma in 1966, beginning a stormy partnership which ended in front of television cameras when Zulema kicked her husband out of the presidential palace just weeks after he assumed office in 1989.
It took an army assault team to return Menem to his rightful residence while the feisty Zulema was ejected onto the street, with the couple's two children.
The bizarre events inside the Menem family home outdid the wildest soap opera as Zulema constantly complained of her husband's violence and infidelity.
At the age of 10, Menem's son, Carlitos, fetched a loaded pistol and put it to his father's head, threatening to shoot him if he ever struck his mother again.
Menem once beat his wife in front of the visiting director of a provincial bank, after which she visited the local police chief and a family doctor, who verified her injuries.
On another occasion, Zulema dived into the family swimming pool for her morning swim only to discover a crocodile in it, left there by her husband.
Ms Yoma would also show house guests the marks on the wall where various heavy objects had crashed, narrowly missing their intended victim - her husband.
When asked if she was jealous of her husband's playboy reputation she affected disinterest: "Don't worry, when it comes to my affairs, the papers will have to publish a special supplement." Menem enjoyed a healthy relationship with his daughter, Zulemita, until the announcement of fresh nuptials caused further family divisions.
Menem previously signed his house in Anillaco over to Zulemita, little expecting her to seek a legal barring order three weeks ago, just before 1,500 wedding guests arrived at the mansion.
The local state governor stepped in, offering his residence for the reception while a basketball stadium served up music to thousands of locals.
Zulemita then blocked her father's plans to live in a second family home in Buenos Aires, refusing the new bride permission to cross the threshold.
The political scandal crossed paths with the family scandal in court last week when Zulema linked the death of her son, Carlitos, with the illegal arms sales.
Carlitos, the Menem's only son,died in a helicopter crash in 1995, on the same day that news of the illegal arms sales first surfaced in a major daily newspaper.
Zulemita believes that her son was killed because he had begun complaining publicly about shady crooks among his father's inner circle.
Menem, the son of Syrian immigrants, joined the Peronist movement in the 1950s, studied law in Cordoba city but spent more time in the city's casinos than in the university library.
Argentina, a nation of immigrants, has never succeeded in forging a common national identity, its people sharply divided along social and cultural lines.
The conservative armed forces stepped in to fill the gap, seizing power to "prevent chaos" between 1930 and 1946, 1955 and 1973, and finally 1976-1983.
The army inevitably handed back power to civilian rulers when their incompetence brought the nation to the verge of economic collapse.
In the 1940s, former army colonel Juan Domingo Peron and his wife, Evita, united the working classes behind a populist, nationalist movement which deeply influenced Argentinian politics for the following 50 years.
In 1956, Menem was first sent to prison, accused of plotting against the military junta which tossed Peron out of power a year before.
The quickest path to political advance lay in a blessing from Peron, who was in exile in Madrid, at the invitation of Spanish dictator Franco.
Menem blagged his way into Peron's home with a visiting delegation in 1964, impressing the historic leader. He was subsequently elected Governor of La Rioja province but his mandate was cut short by another military coup, in 1976.
Menem was rounded up and imprisoned on board a navy ship, spending the next five years in various stages of house arrest.
Menem believed he was predestined for greatness but suffered bouts of depression when his dreams failed to live up to reality.
When democratic rule was restored in 1983, Menem returned to his home province and set about building up a solid base for his political assault on the presidency.
The story of Facundo Quiroga, a fictional strongman from a famous Argentinian novel, provided him with a philosophical base; "He would go out into the backyard, shout at the top of his voice and lift his arms, urging the spirit of Facundo to enter his body," said Zulema.
Menem took off into the hillside on horseback to commune with the spirit of Quiroga, always making sure the media was alerted to his spontaneous spiritual quests.
He adopted the Facundo look, sporting exaggerated sideburns and a flowing cape, promising to make Argentina a global power.
Argentina was in a depressed mood in the 1980s as victims of the recent dictatorship shocked the nation with tales of unspeakable torture carried on under the noses of ordinary people, who were too frightened to react.
Death squads pulled up to hospitals and grabbed doctors or patients in broad daylight, children were kidnapped and civilians executed on busy streets, terrifying the entire population.
Menem was a charming, dynamic politician who massaged the oversized national ego, battered by dictatorship and hyperinflation.
Menem was elected president in 1989 and immediately called up the nation's wealthiest business corporations, asking them to design an economic plan and provide funds to implement it.
The group with the best plan would be rewarded with the Ministry of Economy.
Menem revelled in the high life, convinced that his conspicuous consumption would rub off on his subjects, creating a general mood of optimism to attract foreign investors.
Argentinians joined the consumer frenzy, maxing credit cards while politicians rubbed shoulders with the jet set and Menem invited the Rolling Stones to stay in his house.
Charly Garcia, Argentina's answer to Tom Waits, raised the president's ratings several notches by recording an album with him.
Argentina also raced up the league of most corrupt nations as it quickly became apparent that cash bribes smoothed the path to lucrative government contracts.
One celebrated case involved computer giant IBM, whose sales rep in Argentina was forced to pay a million-dollar bribe to secure a government contract. In 1988, a few months before Menem was elected president, George W. Bush, current US President, pressured the outgoing Argentinian administration to favour Enron, a Houston-based company, for a contract to build a gas pipeline in Argentina.
He was unsuccessful, but the Bushes hit it off with the high-rolling Menem, who gave Enron a $300-million sweetheart deal on the pipeline project.
The Enron deal triggered a public outcry but the special prosecutor handling the probe was fired by Menem, ending the investigation.
The economy began to waver during Menem's first term but he was re-elected in 1995, claiming that the benefits of his policies would be felt in the following years.
The fiesta ended, however, as external debt payments spiralled upwards, social spending was savagely cut and foreign imports destroyed domestic industry, leaving 20% unemployment.
Argentina, once a world power, has been reduced to a beggar at the gates of the IMF while soup kitchens feed the hungry and office workers are replaced with teenage interns working for half their wages.
Social unrest is on the increase, meeting violent police reaction - two people were shot dead during street protests in northern Argentina last Sunday.
Menem enjoys the benefit of house arrest due to his age and awaits a court verdict on his detention, due this Monday.
His wife is preparing a national tour to raise support for his case, inviting comparisons with Evita, who rallied national support for Peron when he was imprisoned in 1945.
Menem is obsessed with such symbolism, interpreting it as a sign of his divine right to rule.
On one occasion he was about to take his seat on board a campaign plane when he suddenly changed his mind, deciding to pilot his own small aircraft.
As he stood on the runway the first plane took off, then crashed, killing the pilot.
His strong survival instincts are carrying him through the most turbulent period in modern Argentinian history.
"I am a political prisoner," complained Menem last week, accusing the current government of pursuing the case against him to distract attention from the growing economic crisis. "Every day I speak to my people spiritually," he said, holding a biography of Napoleon Bonaparte, looking for clues to help him navigate the stormy seas ahead.