The man Argentine is likely to choose as their new president on Sunday is a fervent Bob Dylan fanatic. Since he was 16, Alberto Fernandez plays the songs of the American singer-songwriter on guitar. Sometimes he quotes him in his speeches. Above all, however, Fernandez is the owner of a collie dog named Dylan, who is now followed by tens of thousands of Argentines in social networks. Dylan is campaigning there. "Que hombre!", What a man, he tweeted recently under a photo of his master.
One has to mention that, because otherwise not so much is known about the Peronist Alberto Fernandez, who leads in most election forecasts with about 20 percent ahead of the incumbent Mauricio Macri.
Fernandez, who teaches criminal law at the Buenos Aires National University, has largely withdrawn from politics in recent years. Between 2003 and 2007 he was chief of staff of then President Nestor Kirchner. Fernandez also held this post under Kirchner's wife Cristina before overriding himself with the president and becoming a sharp critic of her populist economic policy.
Many Argentines were surprised when they learned at the beginning of the year that Kirchner and Fernandez would talk to each other again. However, they were even more surprised when Kirchner announced in a video message in the spring that she was giving up her own candidacy and instead wished to be Fernandez's vice-president. Maybe that was the decisive move. Unlike Kirchner, Fernandez, whose trademark is a bushy schnauzer, is a moderate man of dialogue whom many Argentines most likely trust to find solutions to the diverse, complex problems of their deeply divided country.
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Challenger Fernandez at a campaign event in Mar del Plata
This year alone, three million people in Latin America's third-largest economy slipped into poverty. Thousands of industrial companies have shut down or mass-marketed their employees. Inflation has settled at 50 percent. Money that loses its value every day, flats and food that are becoming unaffordable, it is a situation that causes many Argentina's traumatic memories of the crisis year of 2001, when then-President Carlos Menem had their accounts frozen shortly before the last major bankruptcy, and 39 people died of bloody prostitutes.
Responsible for the crisis today is in the eyes of most Argentinians the current president. Mauricio Macri, who comes from one of the richest families in the country, started in 2015 with the promise of reducing poverty to zero. With the help of neoliberal reforms, Macri wanted to bring the country back to the financial markets, hoping that investors would come, but his bill did not work out.
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President Mauricio Macri
When he abolished the currency controls introduced by Kirchner, many Argentines who did not trust their own economy resumed their savings abroad. When Macri eased the subsidizing fixed prices on electricity and gas to lower government spending, price increases were the result. Bills that were soon to pay. Faced with dwindling reserves, Macri turned to the International Monetary Fund for a record $ 57 billion loan. But even this money, which was used primarily to keep the currency reasonably stable and pay the high risk interest rates on government bonds, is now almost used up.
Many of his actions Macri has taken back in the weeks before the election. When he last toured the country during the election campaign, he complained time and again that he had no time to correct the mistakes of decades.
There is a saying many Argentines cite more frequently these days. When you return to your country after thirty days, it is said that you do not recognize anything. But if you return after thirty years, everything is unchanged.
So Alberto Fernandez will probably be the next to try to lead the country out of its endless crisis. But time is short. Next year, the first repayments to the International Monetary Fund will be due. In order to avoid another bankruptcy, Fernandez will have to try to negotiate with its creditors on a debt restructuring. Fernandez knows that he is required to reduce state spending. During the election campaign, however, he has repeatedly pointed out that people who have nothing to eat, pay no debts. In a TV interview with the news channel TN, he said in this week's that the austerity measures are "like Excel spreadsheets". They worked in theory. In reality, however, it looks like in neighboring Chile, where in recent weeks dozens of people were killed in protests against the neoliberal austerity policies of their government.
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Fernandez has a reputation for being a skilled negotiator. The question, which not only the Argentines face, however, is how independent he will lead his office in the future. In their few joint appearances in the election campaign, he explained with regard to his deputy Kirchner that they would talk about everything. But in the end he decides. How it comes in the end?
The answer my friend ...
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