BUENOS AIRES, (Reuters): FROM SALES of sour milk to schoolchildren to sending arms illegally to Croatia, corruption scandals have flowed steadily from Argentina's Peronist government which looks set to be swept from office Sunday.

The present list of officials under suspicion includes Environment Secretary Maria Julia Alsogaray, probed for alleged tax evasion and misuse of public funds, and Foreign Minister Guido Di Tella, implicated in the damaging arms sales scandal.

"Never in (Argentina's) history has corruption been so widespread, so deep, and above all, exhibited so shamelessly," said historian Felix Luna, an opposition sympathiser.

None of the scandals in his 10 years in office has directly stained President Carlos Menem, who is not allowed to run for re-election but says he will be a candidate in 2003. But close associates and relatives by marriage have been implicated.

An Argentine who believes politicians are honest, or even capable of reform, is a very rare specimen indeed.

But hope springs eternal and pollsters report that the country's 24 million voters rate cleaning up corruption as one of the three most important tasks for the new government, along with reducing unemployment and crime.

The centre-left Alliance's Fernando de la Rua, the mayor of Buenos Aires, is heading for a big victory in Sunday's presidential vote. One of his campaign promises is a crackdown on corruption.

But the Alliance, particularly the Radical Party to which De la Rua belongs, does not have an unstained past either. Several officials from De la Rua's own city government have been prosecuted for bribery and other crimes.

Ricardo Monner Sans, a crusading lawyer who started the investigation into illegal arms sales which has shaken Menem's government, said he had received little encouragement from the Alliance despite its anti-corruption rhetoric.