CFK presented her economic views but avoided public requests to run for president

ARGENTINA - In Brief 27 Apr 2023 by Esteban Fernández Medrano

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This Thursday, Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (CFK) participated in the inauguration of the “Escuela Justicialista - Nestor Kirchner” (i.e. the School of Peronism - NK). CFK defined it as a school of “political, more than technical education” (would that be indoctrination?). She gave at that opportunity a lengthy speech, reaffirming her general political and economic ideas, underlying the benefits of her two mandates and that of her late husband, while often distancing herself from the current government. Although her presentation, claiming her mandates, resembled a campaign speech, and on several occasions, the crowd interrupted her singing “Cristina for President”, most of the time she avoided responding to the public, and when not, she gave clear signs of denying the public's request. This apparent contradiction of presenting a “campaign-type” speech in La Plata (the capital of the Province of Buenos Aires) and yet apparently denying, one more time, that she will run for president, is aligned with the idea of her running for senator of the province of Buenos Aires together with Axel Kicillof for governor (who attentively observed the speech and received supportive comments from CFK). As usual, during her economic analysis, she presented some economic facts, which she distorted with her peculiar way of interpreting reality, to conclude that even her unsuccessful second mandate was better than often understood. More forward-looking, she repeated that the current IMF agreement, in particular its conditionalities, must be revised. She blames the IMF for the inflation rise in Argentina, thanks to implementing a “one size fits all” or “canned” economic prog...