Walter Schmidt
02/14/2020 - 6:51
- Clarín.com
- Politics
“There is no double command in Argentina. I have the pen and the ink cartridges. There are many people who would like me to ignore Cristina, but I am not going to do it, ” said Alberto Fernández yesterday, during an interview with Rivadavia radio.
Vice President Cristina Kirchner in Cuba. Where he criticized the IMF's leadership and spoke of the Italian community in derogatory terms. Photo: Ismael Francisco / Pool via REUTERS
The phrase, not only tries to revalidate the presidential power over that of his vice, Cristina Kirchner, who was the one who contributed the bulk of the votes for the victory of the Front of All. It also aims to bring some peace of mind in two clashes generated by the former president. In time, because the moment is the least indicated.
In the language of economic and international relations, the Argentine government today has two serious conflicts.
The first, with the International Monetary Fund, just at a time when an agency mission arrived to initiate formal debt negotiations, on which the President is more than pending because the economic plan depends on its outcome.
It happens that the vice president, making use of the verbiage she used when she was president, accused the Fund days ago of violating the statute to grant an illegal loan to Argentina, when it was ruled by Mauricio Macri. And in passing, he demanded a take off. But there are details that harden the message in political code. He did it in Cuba and accompanied by the president of that country, Miguel Díaz Canel.
How will Donald Trump, who recently expressed his support for Alberto F. before the IMF, have fallen in the middle of the campaign and while he seeks the Latino vote with an anti-Chavez and anti-Cuban speech?
The immediate consequence was an IMF statement denying any regulatory violation. Juggling , the President considered "pertinent" what he said by his vice, recalling that the same criticisms he had poured when he was a candidate and he had to meet with the authorities of the Fund. Of course, he was a candidate and the things a candidate can say are not the same as a President can say.
In fact, about fifteen days before it was made public that Martín Guzmán would be the Minister of Economy, Alberto already knew from the mouth of the IMF director Kristalina Georgieva, whom he asked to receive.
That is why immediately, and without discrediting Cristina Kirchner but reinterpreting her sayings, Alberto clarified that he wanted a "sensible dialogue" with the IMF and "reach an agreement" to make the country work. It is not the same content nor the tone of what the vice president had said.
The second conflict is with Italy. The sequence is incredible. On January 31, Alberto Fernández held a bilateral meeting, in Rome, with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who expressed his support for Argentina in the debt negotiation. Eight days later, Cristina Kirchner from Cuba slipped that the alleged judicial persecution against her was linked to the "mafia component" of Mauricio Macri's Italian ancestors. That is, he suggested that the Italians of the South are all gangsters. A scandal. And two days later, the President received the Italian ambassador to Buenos Aires, Giuseppe Manzo, to whom he highlighted “the contribution of the Italian community and its values for the development of Argentina”. Yesterday it was learned that the Italian ambassador expressed his complaint during that meeting at Casa Rosada . Again, Alberto Fernández correcting the irruption of Cristina Kirchner.
Can Cristina's starts be functional for the President? Hard. Rather it is an uncontrollable situation. She could have ordered her own - Kicillof, Berni, Eduardo de Pedro - that they won't talk more about "political prisoners." But that did not happen.