05/26/2021 2:17 AM
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 05/26/2021 2:17 AM
Mauricio Macri once again defended Fabián "Pepín" Rodríguez Simón, his former legal adviser who requested political refuge in Uruguay and who is subject to an extradition request by the Argentine Justice.
“There is a persecution, it cannot be argued.
You are being persecuted and tried for wanting to tax money from people who misappropriated.
It's absurd, "the former president considered in an interview with CNN.
He even denounced having been himself "subjected to an unprecedented persecution in Argentina", as well as his government team, his family and his close people.
"But we are calm, through different instances of Justice, Justice will come. We are in the battle to defend the institutionality against an attempt to defend democracy in Argentina. Without freedom and without democracy there is no future," said Macri .
In that sense, he argued that "the pandemic has been a wonderful excuse for authoritarians and limits must be set, because the most important thing we have to defend is democracy and everything that combats populism."
He defended himself against the complaint for the loans requested from the International Monetary Fund, "which was to pay dollar for dollar debts that we already had and were due."
"To say that it is money that we take abroad is preposterous," said Macri.
He also referred to the case for alleged illegal spying on journalists, judges and politicians.
He recalled that during his government "journalists could say what they wanted and judges could act freely."
"After a month (after taking office), with the Panama Papers I presented myself to the judge and at the same time proved that it was a lie. From my government absolutely no one was spied on," he said.
"Democracy must be cared for every day in small events," he said.
Negotiation with Pfizer and lack of vaccines
That of judicial persecution was not the only accusation that the one who governed Argentina between 2015 and 2019 launched against Kirchnerism, since, in line with the complaint that Patricia Bullrich made about the negotiations with Pfizer, it also demanded answers.
"There is still no explanation that agrees. The latest lie that the President has told is that Pfizer stopped selling to the world because it concentrated on selling to the United States, when we know that Brazil, Uruguay and Chile bought millions of Pfizer vaccines, many of which have already been delivered, and we have not received a single one, "he said.
And he added that at those doses "we were guaranteed by the collaboration we had had with them" during the investigation.
"Today we are again in a lock down, a quarantine, after having had the longest quarantine in the world last year. It generates a lot of damage, it is a very expensive tool for psychology, mental health, occupational health, and now we had to fall back into an extreme quarantine due to lack of vaccines, "he said.
And he insisted: "The Government has to explain to us why it bought the minimum Covax quota, why we don't have Johnson, why we don't have Moderna, and why, mainly, we don't have Pfizer."
“They said that with me in the presidency the country was going to have 10,000 dead and we are already more than 75,000.
Populism has us used to saying any barbarity, lies, slander.
Lying systematically is the basic reality of populism ”, chicaneó.
In addition, he provided an explanation about his vaccination in the United States.
"While in Miami at the conference to which I was invited by Lenín Moreno, I found out that in a neighborhood pharmacy in Coral Gables, two blocks from the hotel, he was vaccinated (...) I considered that the least I could do as a contribution was go and pay for a vaccine in the United States to free someone in Argentina, because it will take months for all Argentines to be vaccinated, "Macri justified himself, who had promised to inoculate himself only after the last Argentine did.
Possible presidential candidacy in 2023
Mauricio Macri avoided running directly as a candidate for the 2023 presidential elections, but he did speak of a "second half of change."
“I am not focused on that and there is a long way to go.
Also, of course, you have to know if people are willing.
What yes, I am convinced in defending democracy so that Argentines have different options to choose between those who can govern us in the right direction, not the one we are taking today, with which unfortunately we went back to the past and almost never brings good results ", he began .
Later, however, he announced that "there is going to be a second half of the change," making a game with the name of the book in which he tells of his presidential experience, First half.
"Our government between 2015 and 2019 was the prologue of the change. It is somewhat paradoxical, because we had already started on the right course, to travel the path of progress, why go back?", Asked the former president, whom Elisa Carrió already announced that she would not support a candidacy.
Asked about the reasons that led him to defeat in 2019, he replied that it was: "because of things in which we failed, things that I did not know how to explain, expectations that I generated and did not measure up and that made many people doubt."
"Many of those people who doubted and bet on the return to the past with Kirchnerism, today are learning and understanding, and that will give us the opportunity to return to power with more political support, with majorities, with an understanding, with learning from us and from the citizens, and there we are going to build that solid building of progress, which is what we all need, "he harangued as if he were already on the campaign trail.
Macri expects "an opportunity to work and demonstrate," with the aim of "getting out of that path of populism, which is so harmful to countries and is devastating our beloved Latin America."
"For me, this is going to be the last government of populism in the history of Argentina," predicted a Macri who, although he does not say so openly, is already thinking about how to return to command the Casa Rosada.
Regarding his presidency, he considered that his biggest mistake was "not having given more power to the Minister of Finance to guarantee a greater and faster reduction in the fiscal deficit."
"It was clearly a mistake, I only gave it to him in 2017. All the economic ministers had their agenda, their impetus to save energy, infrastructure, economic development, but in a country that has no currency, the most important thing is the principle of growth, economic development and predictability is to have currency. That has to be the priority in 2023, to generate the bases for us to have a macroeconomy, "he developed.
Also former president of Boca Juniors, Macri exemplified with a soccer phrase: "Having an economy without currency is pretending to play soccer without a ball."
DB
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