Cristina Kirchner receives a mass bath in an electoral key: “We are the new”

Cristina Kirchner no longer says that she will go “for everything”, as she repeated ten years ago, shortly after being re-elected with 54% of the vote. This Thursday, in front of some 60,000 people gathered at the Diego Maradona stadium in La Plata, he called on the opposition to discuss “a sustainable country” with Peronism, he avoided direct criticism of Alberto Fernandez —the president, whom he did not even name—, and left his possible candidacy in 2023 on the air. He spoke, however, in an electoral key. “We are the new,” said the vice president, referring to Kirchnerism, the sector of Peronism that governed Argentina between 2003 and 2015. The old would be, in this reading, former President Mauricio Macri, but also an emerging figure of the extreme right, Javier Milei, whom he linked to the “failed” neoliberal policies of the nineties.

The excuse for the rally was the Day of Militancy, with which Peronism commemorates every November 17 the return of Juan Domingo Peron to Argentina, after 18 years of exile. This year marks the 50th anniversary of that memorable event. Cristina Kirchner arrived at the stadium in the presidential helicopter. She is in office due to Fernandez’s absence. The president did not listen to her vice president: at that time she was flying over the Atlantic after making a stopover in Madrid on her return from the G20 summit, held in Bali. The duo of power in Argentina is barely spoken.

They did it last September, when Kirchner suffered an assassination attempt at the door of his house. And they did it again this week, when the vice president became concerned about a health problem that forced Fernandez to suspend part of her agenda in Bali. It was expected that this Thursday her direct attacks on him would return, but there was little of that. Kirchner even seemed to justify her criticism of the past against the economic course, the agreement signed by Fernandez with the IMF or the official strategies against inflation. “When someone had the immense honor of being president twice, and accompanying a president, when we say things it’s not on a whim, it’s simply to help things get better,” she said.

presidential candidacy

There was much speculation in Argentina about the content of the speech that Kirchner would give to his followers. The possibility that he would formalize his presidential candidacy circulated throughout the week in the local press, although it sounded unlikely that he would make such an announcement three days before the start of the World Cup in Qatar and with nine months to go before the closing of electoral lists. When the crowd began to chant “Cristina presidenta,” Kirchner waited without a gesture for them to finish singing and responded with a phrase from Peron. “As the general said,” he said, “everything to his measure and harmoniously.” His candidacy is up in the air.

The La Plata stadium, 60 kilometers south of Buenos Aires, was filled with militants from La Campora, the group led by Kirchner’s son, Maximo, and militants from the Evita Movement, a piquetero social organization that today has positions in the Ministry of Social Development. They are the ones in charge of distributing social assistance plans. Kirchner has been criticizing the state assistance model for some time and this Thursday he insisted on it. “Politics is work and salary, in a political project of industrialization and added value,” he said. She barely mentioned the legal cases for alleged corruption that she faces, although she insisted on linking them to a larger project, which seeks, according to her, “the disappearance of Peronism.”

The date could not be more propitious to touch on the matter: when Peron returned in 1972, he had been banned by the military for 18 years. “But Peronism always ends up reincarnating, and what seemed dead and buried is not. Why don’t you try talking with Peronism, to see what model of Argentina Peronism wants, to see if it is so different from yours,’” Kirchner asked, in a message to the liberal opposition that already considers the general elections won. of next year.

Alberto Fernandez, in the distance

While Kirchner had his mass bath in Buenos Aires, Alberto Fernandez was traveling on a plane back to his country. The Argentine president has followed the Argentine political news of the last week from abroad, on an international tour that began last Thursday in France, continued at the G-20 held in Indonesia and ended this Thursday in Madrid. Fernandez has found political peace abroad that he does not enjoy at home, where he must add his fratricidal war with Kirchner to the economic crisis. The negative image of the Government of him already reaches 77%, a record in his three years in office, according to the latest survey by the consulting firm D’Alessio Irol and Berensztein.

The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, received Fernandez in Paris and highlighted the common perspective on global problems and the importance of the bilateral bond “to improve the energy and food situation that has been affected by this war that Russia started.” The affectionate greetings and mutual praise showed the good harmony between the two leaders, which was again evident in Bali, when Fernandez was invited to a dinner hosted by Macron.

Fernandez’s agenda was put into question shortly after arriving on the Indonesian island when he suffered a breakdown from erosive gastritis. Fernandez was absent in the early hours of the G-20 summit, but recovered in time to save the meetings agreed in advance with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, and with the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva.

With Xi, he completed an extension of the currency swap with which Argentina will freely dispose of 25,000 million yuan, approximately 5,000 million dollars. The funds, which will be available in 30 days, will strengthen Argentina’s weakened reserves and reduce pressure on the local currency.

The meeting with Georgieva was also positive, according to the balance of the Casa Rosada. The head of the IMF praised the economic measures put in place by the Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, but warned that they should be maintained: “It is very important that Argentina stay the course as it has done so successfully in recent months. We have successfully concluded the second review, in a short period, due to the discipline that Minister Massa and his team have shown”, Georgieva stated. These revisions are part of the agreement signed in March for the restructuring of the debt of 44,000 million dollars contracted by the South American country with the IMF.

After being received by the Spanish vice president, Yolanda Diaz Perez, in Madrid, Fernandez took an Aerolineas Argentinas flight to return to Argentina. On board the plane he followed the speech of his close enemy.

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