MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

C. Kirchner promises to fight on “for those who have less”

Speaking for the first time since the stunning defeat suffered in Congress Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner said that she will continue to fight “for those who have less” and promised to insist with policies that “affect interests”.

Mrs. Kirchner late Thursday evening flew to north Argentina for the inauguration of air terminal in the province of Chaco, one of the poorest in the country where she only referred elliptically to the early dawn rejection in the Senate, by one vote, of a controversial farm export tax bill. The decisive vote that marked the Kirchners first great political defeat was cast by vice president and Mrs. Kirchner presidential ticket companion, Julio Cobos. The Senate vote came after 128 days of a stand off between the Kirchner administration and farmers' organizations that consider the sliding export taxing system "unconstitutional and confiscatory". "I've never betrayed my promises", she said adding that to grow and deliver "you must touch interests". Mrs. Kirchner also talked about those who had accompanied her in the electoral promises: "in this task of representing interests which got us moving, not only did it include us but others who accompanied, and others who belong to our party but have defected". "Maybe some did not understand what we were talking about last October (when the electoral campaign), but they will, some day they'll realize what this commitment means". The Argentine president made another tangent reference to the ongoing conflict with farmers underlining that "in spite of all that has happened, and you know what I'm talking about", the Argentine economy last May expanded 8%, "almost a challenge". She also mentioned that foreign investment in Argentina in 2008, "in spite of the forecasts from those disaster augurs in the media" will double to over 14 billion US dollars, mostly foreign capital. Mrs. Kirchner made it a point to underscore that the air terminal inaugurated was mostly financed by the federal government and managed by the private sector, and regretted the fact that foreign (Spanish) investors had decided to give up Argentina's flag air carrier Aerolineas Argentinas precisely on that day. "We've recovered our flag air carrier. I would have preferred it did not happen, but the fact is that we Argentines, members of a federal country, have suffered the deterioration of a service which had long ceased to be a public service", she emphasized. Several cabinet members flew with the Argentine president for the event that included a big display of popular support organized by the local governor Jorge Capitanich a staunch ally of the Kirchners.