MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Central bank acting president, first victim of political clash in Argentina

Mercedes Marcó del Pont, acting central bank president

Argentina’s central bank interim chief seems condemned to be the first victim of the political clash between the Executive and Congress over the government’s use of central bank reserves to pay maturing debt in 2010.

Even when Mercedes Marcó del Pont vowed to continue in her post because she openly supported President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s Monday decree transferring central bank funds (6.6 billion USD), opposition parties which now dominate Congress anticipated they would eject her next week as governor.

On Wednesday night the Senate accords committee decided not to approve her nomination to the bank and therefore supposedly will be ejected from the post when the full house meets next week.

The Senate’s decision was based mainly on the ruling from a Federal Judge in the Contentious-Administrative who overturned Mrs. Kirchner’s decree temporarily suspending the use of foreign reserves to service public debt.

Speaking on a radio program Mercedes Marcó del Pont, said that “if I had not been in agreement with the emergency decree on Monday, I would have quit”. She added that she feels “tired, with complicated days, but I am a person who thinks positive” and doesn’t give up.

Marcó del Pont added that one has to bring forward “ideas, trajectories, and that is what I would have liked to have debated”. “I am a little worried about what happened yesterday,” said the economist.

“I had asked the senators to not summon me with a one-hour notice” to talk about the emergency decree. “I really was interested in discussing this thoroughly, not just give explanations” with regards to the decree, she said.

“We had agreed that they would ask me to talk with a reasonable prior notice,” said Marcó del Pont.

“I hope that these things can be discussed thoroughly in their entirety next week,” she said. “The emergency decree was the only thing that the directive council from the Central Bank could offer,” adding that “we have all of the material that supports the decision made by the Central Bank.”

“I think it's a good decision, that the reserves are not there to be used for just anything,” said the Central Bank director, who ended her declarations by saying that “these are things to be debated, and unfortunately I couldn't do that yesterday.”

“I think I have a right to be heard as interim president of the bank. I have a right to defend my record” insisted Marcó del Pont.

“I have no plans to step down. I have been commissioned acting president of the bank. I continue to make decisions, looking after the stability of markets…I continue to work and I’m optimistic about what will happen next week”.

President Cristina Kirchner also defended her appointed bank governor saying “how is it that the opposition can decide only in half and hour that Marcó del Pont is to be removed from the Central Bank? What happened yesterday was not an institutional, democratic and rational act. It was an act that showed the opposition has sank too low, the lowest in the Senate's history'

“I demand respect for Marcó del Pont performance as an economist, an academic, a professional, as a person who has the right to be heard. Or do you forget you approved her with flying colours when named to the Banco Nación?”