MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Kirchner insists with mud slinging in Bs As mayor campaign

“We're not going to play ball with the dirty campaign launched by the Kirchner administration” said candidate Macri

Buenos Aires City mayor run off candidates will not be debating ahead of Sunday June 24th vote. Conservative candidate Mauricio Macri who defeated President Nestor Kirchner's man, Daniel Filmus by 22 points in the first round said the campaign had turned “too aggressive and dirty”.

"Historically we've always debated, even when leading, but in the current context of aggressiveness and dirty campaigning, it wouldn't make sense", said Macri in an interview with the press. "It's a decision that has been approved by all my team and therefore there will be no televised debate Wednesday night". Since Sunday June 3 first round vote when Mr Macri almost doubled Education minister Daniel Filmus (46% to 24%), the Kirchner administration launched a barrage of attacks on the conservative candidate trying to link him to the controversial nineties when liberal economic policies supposedly led Argentina to bankruptcy, dependency and default. However the digging into the past of Macri, and his family (one of Argentina's strong economic groups) missed the mark because the mud slinging headed by President Kirchner and several of his cabinet ministers proved to be wrong or inaccurate "We're interested in discussing proposals, in a civilized manner, exchanging ideas and thinking of solving Buenos Aires residents problems, not mud slinging and searching into the past", said Macri. "We're not going to play ball with the dirty campaign launched by the Kirchner administration, which we regret". But Kirchner's candidate Filmus has insisted and invited Mr Macri to reconsider his position, "because the residents of the city of Buenos Aires are entitled to this debate. By the way I accepted all the debate conditions demanded by the Macri team" "The victim is not Mr. Macri but the residents of the federal capital" insisted Filmus. And when asked why Macri had changed of opinion, Filmus refused to answer. "I'm not going to answer why Macri adopted such an attitude. That is a question for him". Actually Mr. Filmus objectives are not necessarily the same as those of his mentor President Kirchner according to Argentine analysts. The Argentine president objective is the October presidential election and the strategy is to compare two models: that of the nineties and former president Carlos Menem with its liberal economic policies which ended in disaster, or his own model since 2003 which has seen the Argentine economy expand at an unprecedented and uninterrupted pace since then. But for the more sophisticated electorate of Buenos Aires city the crude aggressive approach of Mr. Kirchner (who chose Filmus and provides him with the funds and logistics) is not necessarily the more appropriate, and could eventually backfire, particularly if the mistakes of the first attacks on Macri are so far of the mark. Mr. Filmus with an academic background and always linked to Buenos Aires City politics seems more inclined to a style of debate closer to that of his competitor. Furthermore there's a strong infighting going on in the cabinet and a showing of Filmus below 40% in the run off (which apparently is the "victory" target of Mr Kirchner) could mean changes in the ministers' influence ratings. The latest public opinion polls published Monday shows Mr. Macri winning with 61% of the vote and Mr. Filmus with 38%.