Will Cristina De Kircher Run for President Again in October
Leftist Atop Argentina Race Moves From Kirchner's Shadow. Will His Policies Follow?
BUENOS AIRES — As Argentina this week endured a market place free-autumn at the prospect of President Mauricio Macri'southward losing the coming presidential ballot, the mastermind of the strategy that may well defeat him has remained largely out of sight.
The campaign that former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has run in accelerate of the October vote has been uncharacteristically low-key. It'south also a entrada for vice president. At the head of Mrs. Kirchner's ticket is Alberto Fernández, a moderate leftist with a history of deal-making.
Before Mrs. Kirchner tapped him as her running mate in May, many voters knew piffling or nothing nigh Mr. Fernández'south plans for the country. Now, with the land engulfed in a deep recession among a contracting economic system, high aggrandizement and an investor stampede, he may become Argentina's next leader.
The crucial question for many over the adjacent few months is whether a victory for Mr. Fernández would represent a render to Mrs. Kirchner and her populist policies — or something else.
A huge sell-off of Argentine avails followed Mr. Fernández'southward stiff showing in a primary ballot on Sunday, suggesting that investors may interpret his candidacy as a political play by Mrs. Kirchner to render to power.
A former 2-term president and current senator, Mrs. Kirchner remains a powerhouse in Argentina, with the best approval rating of any opposition politico. But she is also a divisive figure who has been indicted in 11 corruption cases, and whose heavy-handed interventionist policies many economists arraign for the financial morass that Mr. Macri inherited, and failed to turn effectually.
"Fernández de Kirchner is corrupt and an erratic economic managing director, but she'southward a master at politics," said Benjamin Gedan, the director of the Argentina Project at the Wilson Center. "She recognized she was also divisive to recapture the presidency, and she was savvy enough to choose a running mate from outside her highly ideological inner circle."
And indeed, by earning 48 percentage of the vote in Sunday's primary ballot — which is intended to narrow the field of candidates, but effectively serves as a preview of voter intentions — Mr. Fernández broke through Mrs. Kirchner'due south ceiling of support and the litany of graft and cronyism allegations that have long made her an like shooting fish in a barrel opponent to attack. Mr. Macri, with 32 percentage, trailed badly in second place.
Many voters may see Mr. Fernández as a more moderate version of Mrs. Kirchner. Her populist measures might take hampered business organisation growth and left a ballooning public deficit, but they also kept basic services affordable.
Mr. Macri — elected in 2015 afterwards the consecutive governments of Mrs. Kirchner and her married man and predecessor, Néstor Kirchner — put in place severe thrift measures that impoverished many Argentines, without delivering prosperity.
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But many experts say Mr. Fernández's regime may exist more than a render of Mrs. Kirchner's brand of government.
While Mr. Fernández, lx, played important roles in the presidencies of Mrs. Kirchner, 66, and of her hubby — and has been highly critical of the Macri administration — he was besides a harsh critic of Mrs. Kirchner's. He has broken with her in the past, and could be willing to depart from her policies over again.
"He was a partner of Néstor and Cristina, not an employee," said Luis Tonelli, a professor of comparative politics at the Academy of Buenos Aires. "They were a team in which he was a minority partner, only he wasn't someone who simply followed orders."
Mr. Fernández met Mrs. Kirchner'southward hubby, Néstor, when the latter was governor of Santa Cruz province, in the south.
When Mr. Kirchner was elected president in 2003, he tapped Mr. Fernández equally his cabinet chief. They faced an arduous claiming. Argentina was recovering from a spectacular economic collapse and had defaulted on some $100 billion in debt.
Mr. Fernández played a leading office in mapping out an economic recovery plan by edifice political alliances and taking reward of the commodities boom that lifted the economies of Argentine republic and several of its neighbors.
Mr. Fernández stayed on as cabinet chief when Mrs. Kirchner succeeded her married man in Dec 2007, but he lasted only a few months. Later leaving the regime, Mr. Fernández became i of the fiercest critics of Mrs. Kirchner's administration, oft railing against her on political talk shows.
The two reconciled shortly after the 2017 midterm elections, when Mr. Macri'due south coalition won a big victory. That led Mrs. Kirchner to declare that she would be willing to forego running for the presidency again if that could unite her Peronist political party's base.
The builder of the détente between the 2 former allies was Juan Cabandié, a lawmaker in the lower house of Congress.
"It was my idea," Mr. Cabandié recalls, noting that Mr. Fernández was "very intelligent" and that having a former critic within their ranks could exist useful.
One time that reunion happened, the two kept talking "until they started trusting each other again," said Eduardo Valdés, who was Argentina'southward ambassador to the Vatican during role of Mrs. Kirchner's presidency.
Mrs. Kirchner later credited Mr. Fernández with convincing her to write a memoir that became a delinquent best seller, priming her for her political comeback.
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But fifty-fifty Mr. Cabandié was surprised when, five months later, Mrs. Kirchner appear she would run as vice president with Mr. Fernández at the head of the ticket.
Those who have known him for decades said Mr. Fernández is particularly well suited for the task. Jorge Arguello, who served as Argentine republic's ambassador to the Usa from 2011 to 2013, recalled that when he and Mr. Fernández were student activists in the early 1980s, Mr. Fernández was oftentimes charged with forging alliances between disparate groups.
Shut associates also dubiousness that Mr. Fernández, who is a fan of stone music and named his Instagram-famous collie Dylan, subsequently Bob Dylan, would be a figurehead president under Mrs. Kirchner's command.
"Alberto is a effigy with his own political influence — he isn't a puppet," said Jorge Taiana, who served as foreign minister while Mr. Fernández was chiffonier chief. "Information technology is articulate that Cristina has decided to step to the side."
Later on largely staying out of the spotlight for 2 days, Mr. Fernández gave a brief news conference on Wed. Seeking to at-home the markets, he said he had no intention of defaulting on Argentina's debt.
He likewise said he would like Mr. Macri, 60, to stop out his term — an assurance that reflects the turbulent political history in Argentina, where presidents have been forced from office before their term ends when the economy unravels.
Mr. Macri, who had been despondent on Mon, warning voters that the market crash was a preview of things to come up if they voted for Mr. Fernández and Mrs. Kirchner in October, had shifted his tone by Wednesday.
Later apologizing for his burst, the president unveiled a package of short-term measures meant to bring relief to middle-class voters. The initiatives were so hastily put together that the details of one important particular — a xc-day freeze on fuel prices — were slow to emerge.
Still, the change in tone appears to have had the desired effect. On Thursday, markets turned around for the showtime time in the week, with the peso strengthening and stocks rising.
Still, as the presidential competition heats upwards, many Argentines are bracing for more than economic pain.
Alejandro Pintos, 32, who runs a hardware store in the middle-grade Buenos Aires neighborhood of Almagro, said suppliers stopped delivering products for a couple of days and at present have increased prices significantly.
"We're all suddenly thirty percent poorer this week," Pintos said. "Will people still be able to devote money to fixing their homes if something breaks?"
Others are taking the volatility in pace.
"This is Argentina," Alejandro Álvarez, a 52-year-old security guard, said. "Look around you. Do yous run into people panicking? We're used to this."
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/15/world/americas/argentina-president-kircher.html
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