Guido Carelli Lynch
12/10/2020 12:04 AM
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 12/10/2020 12:04 AM
In his office, Chief of Staff
Santiago Cafiero
receives
Clarín
for an hour.
The management of the pandemic, criticism of the opposition and the relationship between President Alberto Fernández and Vice President Cristina Kirchner dominate the conversation.
-What successes and failures of the Government can you identify in this first year of management?
-There were many right.
There is a first success that is structuring on the part of the President, which will leave a mark that is the early diagnosis with respect to the pandemic and how it was going to reach the country.
It seems to me that the most important success is to establish a health care ethic, which was later restructuring for the management of the Government and the pandemic from March onwards.
On March 3, the first case of coronavirus was detected in Argentina and on March 20, the President decreed the ASPO.
In this way, an ethics of health care began to be structured that had to do with strengthening the health system: 12 core hospitals, $ 45 billion pesos in hospital infrastructure, an increase of 40 percent of therapy units and the purchase of early respirator.
Health care is linked to taking care of family income, with the IFE, and with sustaining the productive capacity of the country, the ATP is registered there;
health care, care of family income and work.
Multiple mistakes were made, but pandemic management has no manual.
Self-criticism must come later.
-In his inauguration speech, the President indicated that he wanted to unite the Argentine table and end hunger, but the poor and indigent increased and polarization deepened. Why?
- It is necessary to evaluate is that all those projections were without pandemic.
The pandemic hits an Argentina with 2 years of deficit in the balance of payment, growth of poverty, unemployment, a melted state that had allowed the measles outbreak to return, which had not distributed 4 million vaccines.
A state of great laziness.
There was great hope that still exists and the president picks it up very well and sets very specific goals.
They had to do with reducing poverty and destitution.
Plans were developed for that.
All this policy began and was hit by the outbreak of the pandemic and in the same data from the report of the social observatory of the UCA it is stated that despite the blow to the economy, the great support and the great expenditure of resources that overturned the national state.
That made homelessness not exceed the numbers we have today.
We have to work daily to reverse this situation.
That is why we are going to continue with active policies, which are reflected in the 2021 Budget, which is a process of economic recovery, but also of social recovery.
-According to government numbers there will be a rebound, 5.5 percent in 2021, but the OECD days ago projected lower growth. Is the government not too optimistic?
-The GDP growth of 5.5 points is the one in the budget, it has the forecasts of the Ministry of Economy.
We are confident that we can reach those goals.
-You said that if Mauricio Macri had managed this pandemic it would have been a catastrophe. What would have been more catastrophic than 40,000 deaths and a million and a half infections?
-Every death hurts us.
It is true that everything was done from a very low starting point caused by macroism.
One supposes that a political sector that despised the public, public health, that said that hospitals were not necessary in the Province, that had degraded the Health budget by 26 percent, did not give the same importance to health as our own. political sector.
It seems to me that it would have been a catastrophe if Macri had been at the forefront of this pandemic.
Argentine society is wise and put a Peronist government to deal with the hardest moment, in a historical moment where the powers remain on their knees as a result of the virus.
I reaffirm it again.
It is not counterfactual, you have to see the value they placed on public health.
One year of balance.
Santiago Cafiero during the interview with Clarín.
Photo: Andrés D'Elia
- With the December newspaper, the ASPO was not excessive. The economic decline was one of the highest in the region and 40 thousand dead?
-There are countries that have not known the coronavirus and have fallen by 2 digits.
When the IMF looks at the whole picture, it talks that this may be a deeper crisis than the 1930 one, in which 96 percent of the world's income is going to be reduced.
ECLAC says that from 1900 to date it is the biggest fall in Latin America.
There is a naturalization on the part of the whole world of what has happened to us.
We must not underestimate the coronavirus, many countries in Europe have shown that after declaring themselves winners they had to go back and take very deep restrictive measures.
Isolation measures are happening all over the world, it is not an invention of Argentina, there is no other remedy.
The AMBA, as it is the most populated area of our country, it was said that it was going to explode, but that did not happen, because there was a great behavior of the community.
-What would it have meant for it to explode?
-The same thing happened in Europe, the United States, New York.
Today it is naturalized because it did not happen, it is simplified.
In Argentina the postcards that we saw in other countries did not exist.
That was thanks to the accompaniment of the population.
-What will the vaccination or the second wave of infections reach the country before?
-We are making a great effort to ensure that the vaccines arrive in a timely manner.
Our vocation is to be able to have the vaccine as soon as possible;
start with the vaccination campaign and avoid the second wave, not only with the vaccine but also with care.
-Are the classes scheduled to be face-to-face or does it depend on the evolution of the virus?
-It always depends on how it evolves.
Our planning is that teachers are the first to be vaccinated in order to guarantee presence.
I have seen workers who put everything in a very difficult time so that education remotely reaches the whole country and where it has not reached, the government distributed booklets.
-There is talk of more than a million boys who were left out of the educational system.
-I do not know what those figures are, but surely it happened that there is a deficit of connectivity and that contributed negatively to the fact that many young people are not connected.
That is the country that we have to reverse;
we have to continue increasing connectivity as we have done, to reverse the digital divide.
-The President says that he is amused that there is talk of adjustment. But what is the recalculation of pensions, the suspension of IFE and ATP?
-The macrista thinks that they are all of his condition and sees adjustment where there is none.
That is what happens.
What do you call a budget that increases 8 percent in real terms from one year to the next?
There is no adjustment, but there is an emergency package that was used at a time when the pandemic was being managed, which today is focused because it needs to support public policies.
That transforms into different programs.
With regard to pensions I cannot disagree more.
Retirements beat inflation.
-Increased the minimum 35.3 ...
-The retirement of the minimum beat inflation.
They are 75 percent of retirees.
There are two formulas: one with which they won every year and another with which they always lost.
Santiago Cafiero in his office, during the dialogue with Clarín.
Photo: Andrés D'Elia -
-There was a correction.
-Yes, it was defined that instead of 2 annual increases there are 4 increases.
Macrismo always defended the interests of those who speculate and those who escape.
-Are there officials who do not work as Cristina Kirchner said?
-Taking that phrase out of context makes us think about whether the officials work or not.
The vice president said that the criticisms would continue to be sustained, regardless of the forms or if there are officials who do not work, because they criticize a government that seeks to redistribute wealth and when you seek that you fight with the concentrated powers of Argentina.
-How would you define the relationship between the President and the Vice President?
-Complementarity.
They don't always think the same but they have the same goals.
They are complementary like the entire Frente de Todos, which came together because we all have the same goal: to put Argentina on its feet, abandon the model of financial speculation, poverty, exclusion.
There may be nuances, there are.
Part of our electoral strength was having achieved that unity in diversity.
How are we going to stop that if it is what gave us the possibility of showing a political project with a more open agenda that encompasses the demand of a society that did not feel more represented?
We do not believe in single thinking.
We believe in the frank debate of ideas.
This debate takes place towards the Front of All, but we do not spy on each other.
-Cristina Kirchner said that the government's judicial reform was not a judicial reform and her sector wants to change the public ministry law before electing the attorney proposed by the President.
-That's not linked.
There may be nuances, but that judicial reform bill has already been approved in the Senate.
The debate has to be held in Deputies.
We have won in institutional quality, in republican quality.
The debates will have to take place.
The President did not make any reform by decree.
-The only candidate for the attorney is Daniel Rafecas. Will he take office if the 2-thirds majority of the Senate is changed?
-I do not know.
Before that Rafecas should present his project to the Public Prosecutor's Office to see if that convinces those who apparently from the opposition say in the media that they are going to accompany him, but do not say the same when they sit on the premises.
-He said that he would not assume if the majorities were changed.
-The same opponents said they were going to accompany him. In that case, it would have two-thirds even if the law is modified and both things would be fulfilled.
-You criticized the Supreme Court ruling that upheld Amado Boudou's conviction.
-I believe and confirm that the Court did not rule on anything of substance.
He hid himself in article 280 to say that he was not going to comment.
The Court should have explained all the requirements that the defense made.
That was our opinion.
- The President's too?
-No, that of this chief of staff.
-Will there be a STEP in 2021?
-It's part of a debate.
It is promoted by the governors, it is not defined by the Executive.
It will have to be treated in Congress.
The governors are perceived in the middle of the vaccination campaign.
-But according to your calculations with the vaccination the second wave would be avoided.
-In the winter we will be vaccinating, it is a reality.
We have a whole semester of work that the vaccination campaign is going to take, which will be an epic as the President said.
- Does the Government think of lowering the age of accountability as proposed by a sector of the PRO?
-That is debated in Congress, we do not have any project in analysis or on the agenda.
We regret the death of the Armenian citizen, it is very painful.
Distension.
The coordinating minister denies substantial differences between Alberto Fernández and the vice president.
Photo: Andrés D'Elia
-This Thursday the legalization of abortion is discussed. Was institutional conscientious objection included to facilitate approval?
-That instance is already a parliamentary discussion.
We comply with sending a project that has public health as its axis, whose axis is caring for the dignity of the woman who decides to have an abortion.
-Does the Government recognize or not recognize the elections in Venezuela this Sunday?
-It is a more fundamental issue, there is a need for there to be an area of dialogue, we want there to be an understanding between the forces of the ruling party and the opposition.The blockade is a very painful type of practice that does not solve anything.
Dialogue must continue to be proposed.
-Will the relationship with the United States change something with the election of Joe Biden as president?
-We will continue working with the authorities that have been elected by the American people;
We have a closer agenda with the government that is starting, which has an environmental agenda, with respect to human rights.
We will have to continue working to continue increasing exports, trying to link with the commercial sector of the United States and seeing how Argentine products can have greater acceptance.
Naturally, there will always be the discussion of the debt and Argentina's relationship with the United States has great strength when it comes to being able to face all projects, not only because of the private debt -which had an acceptance of 99 percent- and the IMF but also by all multilateral organizations, where the United States has a very important specific weight.
-Is the project to install pig factories in agreement with China going to be signed?
- Today has no dates.
-Will the Nation resort to the Court to claim the surplus of the transfers to the City between 2016 and 2019?
-We comply with what article 75 of the Constitution mandates, which is that these types of functions that are delegated end up being by law.
That marks the Constitution and we did it.
To correct is not to remove.
In principle no (we are going to claim the return of the surplus), we have the law in force.
-I insist: isn't it strange that the President and the Vice President have not met in an act for months?
-There is an institutional relationship that works very well and there is complementarity between the two.
Both Alberto and Cristina are the ones who structured, based on that strategic reading, our political front in order to win the elections, to have a different political and judicial model.
None of that is in question.
There is more a view of many media that want to seek the same thing that macroism wanted to do: divide us.
But the Frente de Todos is a vigorous space in frank growth.
-The vice president in her letter this Wednesday questioned the current judges of the Supreme Court for different reasons and pointed out that the Judicial is the only power of the State that does not elect its members. Do you share their arguments?
-We share that the functioning of the Judicial Power is not adequate, that is why we sent a judicial reform to the National Congress and the same president summoned an Advisory Council for the Strengthening of the Judicial Power and the Public Ministry to improve the Justice system, which is a massive demand from citizens.