​Economic Heritage

ARGENTINA - In Brief 02 Mar 2016 by Esteban Fernández Medrano

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Both, Prat Gasy’s press conference regarding the pre-agreement with Holdouts (Monday afternoon) and president Macri’s address to the nation during the inauguration of the current congress session (yesterday) had one aspect in common: a strong and direct criticism regarding the economic heritage the new government received from the Kirchnerists, Frente para la Victoria (FPV). Something the government had avoided so far, or at least not so explicitly. In clear contrast to previous public speeches, the government charged against the economic responsibility of FPV. Prat-Gay spoke of procrastination and bad debt strategy. President Macri went even further pointing out, among others, that the former administration lied to the public, leaving behind an unorganized, oversized, inefficient and badly managed state. The former government filled the ranks of public sector employment with political partisans, destroying the professional careers in the public sector. Clearly, the government felt that the time has come to shift the responsibility of the current adjustment more explicitly to the former government. The fact that Cambiemos managed to establish a fluid political dialog with both anti-K Peronists groups (Massa and Urtubey), giving them thereby some degrees of freedom to negotiate bills in the congress, surely played a role in that decision. In addition, given the internal struggle inside the PJ about its leadership, it is in the interest of UNA or the BJ to dilute FPV influence. Finance Minister Alfonso Prat-Gay: During his press conference, the Finance Minister focused more on the political implications of the resolution of Holdouts than on financial details. He clarifie...