BUENOS AIRES, Argentina Days after threatening to resign if he did not get more political support, Argentine President Eduardo Duhalde said on Saturday he still felt "alone" in his efforts to end a chaotic four-year recession.

Ahead of a meeting today with powerbroking provincial governors that could make or break his presidency, Duhalde told local radio that squabbling politicians were largely to blame for Argentina's inability to reach an aid deal with the International Monetary Fund, Reuters reported.

"It mortifies me to see those who know that Argentina desperately needs to integrate itself with the world but do everything possible to keep that from happening," Duhalde said in his weekly radio address.

Political analysts have widely speculated that Duhalde could follow through on his threat to quit if he is unable to convince the governors on monday to cut spending in their provinces as demanded by the IMF.

"Alone, and without support, it's very difficult to get the country out of this crisis and I wasn't elected to keep sinking it," Duhalde said.

But polls show that most Argentines believe Duhalde, Argentina's fifth president since December, is incapable of ending the country's worst-ever economic crisis and want him to quit and bring forward elections scheduled for 2003.

"The politicians have ruined the country and it's Duhalde's turn to go," said one protester on local television as she and a group of about 50 others banged pots and pans downtown on Saturday morning in protest of a hated bank deposit freeze.

Argentina's devastating economic crisis has put the entire financial system on the brink of collapse, sent unemployment soaring near 25 percent and left half of Latin America's no. 3 economy living in poverty.

Many provincial governors set to meet with Duhalde in La Pampa today have acknowledged the possibility that early elections will be discussed, but most believe the president will secure formal, if lukewarm, support at the meeting.

Duhalde desperately needs to convince the governors to sign IMF-mandated deals to make cuts in runaway public spending that many blame for January's disastrous currency devaluation and default on part of Argentina's $140 billion public debt.

"I think the majority will lean toward Duhalde staying in office," Antonio Cafiero, a respected senator from the ruling Peronist Party, told local radio. "I don't think anyone wants to make an abrupt change in the middle of the river." Duhalde did secure a small victory on Saturday when the capital district of Buenos Aires signed off on a deal to reduce spending. But the nation's biggest debtor, the surrounding Buenos Aires province, has still not agreed to rein in its budget as demanded by the IMF.

A top aide said on Thursday that Duhalde had told legislators he would quit unless they backed a wide range of reforms demanded by the IMF, which wants to assure any eventual aid to Argentina will not be wasted like in the past.