It was just before the end of his term when it became known that Alberto Fernández would lead Spain. Before the transfer of power, the First Lady, Fabiola Yáñez, and their son, Francisco, embarked for Madrid. Faced with rumors of a settling in the Spanish capital, Fernández, still in office, was quick to clarify that he was going to spend the holidays with his family and that he planned to teach at some universities on the peninsula. A version even circulated, in a Spanish newspaper, according to which he could advise the head of the government of that country, Pedro Sánchez, something that the president's office was quick to deny.
In one of the long reports he gave in his last days in the Casa Rosada to defend his administration, Cristina Kirchner's running mate expanded on the reasons why he would leave for Spain as soon as he delegated the command to Javier Milei. On the one hand, he said that he thought it was good to take a step back because, to quote Felipe González, "former presidents are Chinese vases, because we are valuable but they don't know where to put us."
He would later elaborate on X (formerly Twitter) about other, much more personal reasons for his decision. What he was looking for, he explained, was to achieve tranquility with his family, remembering that his eldest son had received death threats and that something similar had happened to a daughter of Mauricio Macri. "All this shows the social tension that is born from the climate that is promoted and the negative effects that all this generates," he continued in his cuenta@alferdez.
In the Atlantic, tranquility seems to have been achieved. Privacy is something else. It so happens that Madrid is a city full of those Argentines that the new former president denied had left the country because of the ravages of his administration. Reality, once again, belies the former occupant of the Quinta de Olivos: according to the Spanish newspaper ABC, in the first half of 2023 alone, 29,500 compatriots moved to Spain, "the record of any semester in the historical series", as stated in the note.
On the streets of Madrid, there always seems to be a cell phone ready to give an account of Fernández's adventures. A few days ago, a video showed him with Fabiola Yáñez making inquiries at a branch of the Santander bank, in one of the most exclusive areas of the Spanish capital. And on New Year's Eve, as they call New Year's Eve over there, another video allowed us to see him accompanied by his wife and youngest son tasting delicacies at the Four Seasons hotel at a cost, according to the chronicles, of 695 euros per person, without wine, and 1,155 euros with wine. That is, $787,177.85 or $1,308,187.65 per capita, as applicable, according to the most recent euro blue rate.
It is clear that when he spoke of his government's debts as "solving the problem of people's incomes," he clearly did not mean his own. Nor when he proclaimed "we have to get used to saving in pesos." Barely twenty-one days after leaving the government, and one of the worst legacies in memory in social and economic matters, Fernández is obscenely celebrating in luxury a Fiesta that, on this side of the ocean, millions of Argentines could not even dare to dream of, sunk in the poverty that the Fernandez-Fernandez-Massa trinomial knew how to generate.
As Machiavelli said: "Politics has nothing to do with morality."