MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Campaign to have ex President Kirchner run for Congress

Argentine officials applauded the possibility that former president Nestor Kirchner run as a candidate to become a national deputy for the province of Buenos Aires in next year's mid term election but the opposition said it was an attempt to get him “off the hook” in several scandal cases.

Interior Minister Florencio Randazzo, the powerful Argentina trade union movement, CGT Secretary-General Hugo Moyano, and Buenos Aires province Governor Daniel Scioli praised the initiative that he should lead the Peronist Victory Front list of deputies. But Margarita Stolbizer, a leader of the opposition Civic Coalition, said that he "wants to run as a candidate to avoid facing trials for the Skanska corruption case and Antonini Wilson's suitcase scandal". "Buenos Aires province courts will not grant any privileges to Kirchner if he is to run as candidate," Stolbizer said. "Kirchner, as Argentina's former president, is the main responsible for these cases and will have to testify in court." Randazzo said in an interview that Kirchner has been "the best president of Argentina so far" and added that "people are aware of this". But he added that it would be "not easy to convince Kirchner that he should run as a candidate next year" because "he is not convinced about it." Yet, he said "we should applaud the possibility of having him as a candidate. "Kirchner is leading by, at least, 30 points over other candidates," Randazzo said. "He represents Argentina's current political policy as no-one other does". Randazzo further said that Kirchner was one of the only former presidents who are "widely aware of how Argentine society works and are supported by general consensus." Governor Scioli said that he didn't know "if Kirchner will submit to people's choice in the (2009) elections," but added that "he is a very capable man who has got experience in managing the country". Scioli said that Kirchner was a "very active man who has shown his managing capabilities during the country's worst periods." He said that, right now, "Kirchner is focused on taking care of what he has done and working on the things that need to be done." "Kirchner has fostered important changes in Argentina's former economic system, which used to work on the basis of foreign indebtedness," Scioli said. "Thanks to him," the governor said, "we are now able to face the international crisis with integrity." Argentine people, he said, "must be proud and act with responsibility." Moyano said that "Kirchner has every right to run as candidate because he has been living at the Olivos government house (in Buenos Aires province) for the last six years." Moyano in this way rejected claims that Kirchner cannot run for Buenos Aires province because he was born in Santa Cruz. "Kirchner is a star candidate," Moyano said, "though I have not talked with him about the possibility of his running in the elections". (BAH).-