He was elected senator in 1973 and unsuccessfully ran for the office of Vice President as Ricardo Balbín's running mate the same year.

After leaving office, De la Rúa retired from politics and faced legal proceedings for much of the remainder of his life until his death in 2019.

[2] He married a Buenos Aires socialite, Inés Pertiné, in 1970; they had three children, including Antonio de la Rúa.

De la Rúa became involved in politics at a young age; he entered public service in 1963 as an advisor to President Arturo Illia's minister Juan Palmero.

[8] The constitutional amendment gave autonomy to the city of Buenos Aires, allowing it to sanction local laws and elect its own mayor, who was previously appointed by the president of the nation.

[16] Carlos Menem started to transfer the control and financing of the underground system to the city, but the 2001 economic crisis halted the process.

He also restarted a project to build the Cámpora Highway linking Dellepiane Avenue with the Riachuelo, and established the first non-recreational bikeway in Buenos Aires at Avenida del Libertador.

They disagreed on the vice president for De la Rúa's ticket; he thought that it should be Meijide because she took part in the primary elections and came from a different district than him.

De la Rúa exploited that description in television advertisements, embracing it and setting a comparison with the glitzy style of Menem and the perceived political corruption of his administration.

He promised to solve the economic crisis with fiscal austerity and higher tax controls, hoping it would lower interest rates, bring more foreign investments, and reduce unemployment.

He also promised to keep the convertibility plan established by Menem that pegged the Argentine peso one-to-one with the United States dollar.

In the first days of his presidency, De la Rúa sent a bill to the Congress to request a federal intervention in the province of Corrientes.

He sent a bill known as the labour flexibility law to deregulate labor conditions, attempting to reduce the political influence of unions, to the Congress.

Álvarez asked for the removal of the labor minister Alberto Flamarique [es], but De la Rúa instead promoted him to be his personal secretary.

However, the abstention rate and several forms of protest votes combined reached 41%, the highest in Argentine history, as a consequence of the popular discontent with the two main parties.

Even the few candidates of the Alliance who won at their districts, such as the radical Rodolfo Terragno in Buenos Aires, did so with political platforms against De la Rúa's administration.

[33] George W. Bush took office as President of the United States in January 2001, and changed American policy towards countries in financial crises.

[34] The September 11 attacks occurred a few months later, and the U.S. focused its foreign policy on the War on Terror against countries suspected of harboring terrorist organizations.

[37] De la Rúa's first Minister of Economy was the progressive José Luis Machinea, who was proposed by Alfonsín and Álvarez.

The scandal over the labor law and the resignation of Álvarez increased the country's risk, and made Argentina's access to international credit more difficult.

The government negotiated a US$38 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) line of credit to prevent a default and allow the economy to grow again.

During the election camapain, De la Rúa had promised not to appoint him to that ministry, but with the ongoing crisis he did not want to risk problems caused by a temporary lack of minister.

[47] Congress approved a bill for a "Zero deficit" policy to prevent further increases of debt and to work only with money from tax revenue.

[49] The IMF refused to send the monthly payment for the line of credit approved at the beginning of the year because the government had not stuck to the "zero deficit" policy.

De la Rúa announced in a cadena nacional (national network broadcast) that he had established a state of emergency.

Adolfo Rodríguez Saá, governor of San Luis Province, was in office for two months while calling for new presidential elections.

The scandal over the labor flexibility law was renewed in 2003 when a former Senate worker, Mario Pontaquarto, claimed to be a witness of the case who delivered $5,000,000 to the legislators.

[56] De la Rúa was also indicted for the police repression which took place during the crisis; he was tried by judge Claudio Bonadio, who in 2009 declared him innocent.

[61] De la Rúa thought that the parody of him by the television comedian Freddy Villarreal helped to establish that image.

[62] The aforementioned popular image of De la Rúa was further magnified when he was hospitalized for peripheral artery disease caused by high blood cholesterol.