Cristina Fernández: a second time that would be the third Come October, Kirchnerism looks on course to remain first choice in Argentina should the current President be reelected as expected. Marina Menéndez Quintero marina@juventudrebelde.cu August 20, 2011 - 19:47:10 CDT A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann “She’s a winner,” an Argentinean colleague commented about Cristina Fernández’s landslide win, as the polls predicted, in a primary election last Sunday, where she got 50.07% of the votes, enough to suggest as of now that she has a very good chance of being reelected on October 23… unless a major setback, unthinkable as it seems today, changes everything. This image, so common during Kircher’s funeral, has been taken up again for the presidential campaign (Photo: Kaloian Santos Cabrera) It’s precisely this forecast of things to come that makes the latest vote so significant and revealing, since to remain in office she must get at least 45% of the vote or otherwise 40% and a 10-point lead over her nearest challenger, a walkover for the President now seeking reelection. With a whole nation thrown into the campaign with barely two months to go till the ballots have the last say, the August 14 primary turned into a true nationwide political survey, one not to be overlooked. Taking into account that the purpose of the so-called Simultaneous and Compulsory Primaries (PASO for its acronym in Spanish) –the first held in the country since the Law of Democratization of Political Representation, Electoral Transparency and Equity was enacted in 2009– was not to announce each party’s two names for the presidential race as in a traditional internal primary but to let voters choose their candidates, three of the ten challengers seeking to run were left out after getting less than 1.5% of the required votes. What raised most eyebrows, however, is the final result likely to be expected in October: Cristina’s reelection bid will boast a nearly 30-point lead over her nearest rivals, Radical Civic Union Senator and head of the so-called Union for Social Development alliance Ricardo Alfonsín –whose father Raúl was Argentina’s first President after the military dictatorship– with little more than 12% of the votes and, hot on his heels, former President Eduardo Duhalde, who held office during the convulsed period between January 2002 and May 2003 and is, like Cristina, a member of the Justicialist Party, albeit from the side known as Popular Union. Both candidates will be hard-pressed to bridge such a wide gap. What this primary has set in relief raises so much hope that there’s already talk of a second four-year term for Fernández, whose legitimate election would make of her the first political personality to deserve so much popular recognition since Juan Domingo Perón. A unified project An able continuator of her late husband and predecessor, Cristina would add her present and possible second term to Néstor Kirchner’s unfinished administration. Nevertheless, the relevance of the victory achieved by the President and Front for Victory (FPV), her political party, could be seen from a different perspective. For instance, with the exception of San Luis, they won in every province, recovering important right-wing strongholds like Córdoba, Santa Fe and the capital city Buenos Aires as well as eleven municipalities ruled by Radical Civic Union governors. Even some opposition spokespersons believe that winning the uphill struggle their candidates have ahead would be nothing less than a “Homeric” deed, so in all likelihood their propaganda campaign leading to the October election will aim for 130 of the 257 seats up for grabs in Congress and another 24 in the Senate to be equally voted on. But even there they must be careful. The parliamentary elections, to be held together with the presidential, might give the FPV a lead of two thirds in both Houses, if not the absolute majority they lost in 2009. Any action to prevent such an outcome would bring Cristina’s rivals comfort in hindering a mandate that many expect will be focused on continuing her –and Kirchner’s– social policies and boost swift economic progress to preserve a GDP growth which Kitchnerism has managed to keep between 8% and 13%, enough for the country’s economy to rank third in the continent. Disappointed with the crushing defeat in a primary not exactly based on competition, the opposition reproaches itself for having so little to offer in October and even calls what they got a protest vote. Yet, others say that the FPV’s trump card for Cristina’s reelection was her performance at the head of a Government built and polished by her forerunner rather than the inability of her opponents. Return to credibility Those who remember the ladies of noble lineage banging saucepans in December 2001, mingled with a crowd of youths from shantytowns who chanted “Let them all go”, the phrase that toppled Fernando de la Rúa, might be surprised about the atmosphere of genuine popular warmth surrounding Cristina, certainly born of a sense of dignity that both Néstor Kirchner and she have preserved, each in their own way. So when we try to find the source of so much support for such a singular performance –that’s why it’s called a project– labeled as Kirchnerism or the justicialista left, we must make sure to look at what it did to take Argentina out of a crisis never before suffered in that country, barring the outrages committed by the military junta. It was the result of neoliberalism and the “physical love” with the United States that Carlos Saúl Menem used to boast about, essentially Latin America’s best proof of people’s weariness of budget cuts, privatizations and layoffs imposed by the same model that fueled popular rejection of the old-school politicians who followed Washington’s instructions to the letter. Menem, who went so far as to sell even Argentina’s cemeteries, plunged Argentina into an economic, political, social and moral bankruptcy that Néstor Kirchner successfully ended after he came to power in 2003. Actually, he would have been FPV’s top candidate had death not got in the way, a tragic outcome that broke Cristina’s heart but strengthened her political foundations, if we may rate as support the many tokens of solidarity she received for the loss of her husband. “The K’s” No review of Néstor’s and Cristina’s performances can overlook the fact that “the K’s”, as they’re also known, took care of the controversial but necessary payment of Argentina’s debt, which helped Kirchner break the outrageous chain tying his country to the IMF’s dictates in exchange for additional loans. Similarly, his first decision as President: to clear the army and the police of repressive elements and reestablish a whole lot of human rights his people had been long denied by declaring legislation like the laws of Punto Final (Full Stop) and Obediencia Debida (Due Obedience) –passed under Alfonsín Sr.– constitutionally illegal. They had absolved of all blame the people responsible for the disappearance of more than 30,000 Argentineans during the years when “the K’s” were Law students, a short while before they got married. Hundreds of those repressors were taken to court as a result. He put his support behind the workers who got back at once their closed factories in Argentina mid-crisis. Then the implementation of a model that Cristina herself recently called “of development and production with social inclusion”. In addition, were his first measures in favor of the needy in a nation where destitution had reached unheard-of levels after the middle class had virtually been pushed below the poverty line. Eventually, Cristina picked up where he let off, firmly but in her own style, which left those who thought he had been her advisor wonder whether it had not been the other way around. Among her first decrees were the establishment of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovative Production and the launching of a savings plan to update electricity use, as required by a country were power outages were commonplace owing to the indolence of the foreign private companies in charge of the service. The recovery of the enterprises Aerolíneas Argentinas and Austral Líneas Aéreas, as well as the abolition of Menem’s shameful private regime of retirement pensions, were other major accomplishments in between a never-ending string of social programs in the public interest. Cristina herself has said that right now Argentina is going through “the most important stage of social inclusion in the country’s history”. Now, with the presidential election around the corner, she’s absorbed in her efforts to make Congress approve a bill limiting to 20% the amount of farmland foreign companies can purchase and to 2,500 the number of acres per individual or entity. She holds this legislation is intended to prevent the risk of what she refers to as the “loss of non-renewable strategic resources”, a very dangerous scenario these days. Truth be told, she will need neither posters with slogans nor electoral platforms for the forthcoming elections. Her cards are already laid on the table.
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