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Vice-president Cobos emerges as Argentina best rated leader

Friday, October 3rd 2008 - 21:00 UTC
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Vice President Julio Cobos Vice President Julio Cobos

Vice President Julio Cobos has become the most popular politician in Argentina strengthened by the weakness of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner who has committed several major political errors and no longer speaks with him.

Cobos says he is committed to working with Mrs. Kirchner, but when she travelled to the United Nations he met with her rivals back home (Buenos Aires mayor Mauricio Macri and farm leader Eduardo Buzzi) and many believe he may be preparing for a presidential run in 2011. Mrs. Kirchner chose Cobos as her running mate last year to widen her support beyond the long established Peronist party. He belongs to the Radical Civic Union, traditional opponents of the Peronists, and his acceptance split the party. But the coalition evaporated when the president shut Cobos out of policy decisions after they took office in December. He took dramatic revenge on July 17 when, in his role as president of the Senate, he broke a tie in the upper house and killed her keystone initiative to raise taxes on the country's main money maker, soy. Members of the ruling coalition called Cobos a traitor and Cristina Fernandez froze him out of official activities, but she cannot fire him and Congress is unlikely to impeach him. He says he won't resign and analysts say the bizarre standoff can last indefinitely. "It's highly irregular but he has been really prudent, maximizing the resources he has, which aren't much because the vice presidency is a weak institution. He can keep doing what he's doing for a long time," said political analyst Sergio Berensztein. Cobos is a 53-year-old civil engineer, a former Dean of the Engineering School and ex-governor of the wine producing province of Mendoza in central Argentina and bordering with Chile. He has become much more popular than Mrs. Kirchner as Argentines applaud his role in the farmers export tax war and because he is seen as accessible and she as arrogant. The latest national surveys show him as the Argentine politician with the highest rating of any leader (in the seventies). Mrs. Kirchner rating on the other hand has sunk to the thirties, following her administration's defeat to protesting farmers and soaring inflation. "The vice president is stronger than the president. Congress is modifying everything she sends there. Unions are asking for huge wage increases," said political commentator Joaquin Morales Sola. However Cobos political future is unclear as he has no party machine to back him. To rejoin the Radicals, Cobos would have to explicitly criticize the Kirchners, an open confrontation he is probably unwilling to engage in, since he wants to use his high profile as vice president to build his future. He has travelled around the country cultivating allies and recruiting what the Argentine media call "Cobist" candidates for the crucial 2009 mid term elections as he tests the waters for a 2011 presidential run. Not bad for a man who less than ten years ago had no active participation in politics.

Categories: Politics, Argentina.

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