MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

“Queen Cristina's” travels trigger political controversy

Senator, First Lady, Presidential Candidacy and frequent fly

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner overseas trips respond to her condition of elected Senator or First Lady and not as presidential candidate said Argentina's cabinet chief Alberto Fernandez against a background of mounting criticisms.

"We have an ongoing discussion with the daily La Nacion that is impossible to overcome given the newspaper's opposition preaching vocation", argued Fernandez who was asked about claims that Mrs Kirchner was traveling on government funding. "When Senator Kirchner, the First Lady or the presidential candidate travels she's a person with this triple condition", insisted the cabinet chief who was not only replying to the Buenos Aires press and opposition candidates but also to a scathing New York Times article that described the First Lady as "Queen Cristina", currently in New York, who in the past two months "has piled up frequent-flier miles in trips to Mexico, Spain, Austria and Germany". Comfortably looking ahead to become Argentina's first elected female president next October 28, according to the NYT, her effort is "more like a coronation than a campaign". Mrs Kirchner has "all but eschewed photo-ops with actual Argentines in the country in favor of coverage abroad with foreign bankers, dignitaries and international investors in Europe and the United States". Cabinet chief Fernandez said that the international tours of Cristina followed on invitations because of her Senator or First Lady condition "and not as presidential candidate". However, "she can't avoid her candidate condition because it's the same person", and as such "she must abide by the security measures determined by law". As to the candidate's relations with the Argentine press, Alberto Fernandez said "at some moment she will talk with them; we must not forget electoral strategies which recommend when to speak and when to wait". The fact is the opposition is so weak that Mrs. Kirchner has been able to all but ignore the Argentine news media, choosing to give select interviews to journalists abroad and openly involve in her increasing fascination with international affairs. Meantime in New York Queen Cristina addressed a packed audience of businessmen and bankers at the influential Council of the Americas, some of which reportedly paid a fee of 5.000 US dollars to be present at the event and meet the most probable next Argentine president. In her speech the First Lady made a review of her husband's administration achievements such as the lowering of unemployment, indigence and poverty indexes as well as promoting industrialization and significantly diminishing Argentina's sovereign debt. Mrs. Kirchner openly rejected the economic policies of the nineties which she underlined "led to profound social inviability generating an institutional rupture", but also admitted Argentina was undergoing through an energy shortage period. However this was mostly pushed by "extreme weather conditions" and is basically "a global problem which also happens to exist in Argentina". She promised that if elected her administration would continue to closely address the issue, "permanently". But among the selected few questions from the audience no mention was made to inflation, the office responsible for official statistics or public utilities rates, frozen since several years.