MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Reutemann says CFK will seek re-election and downplays clashes with organized labour

Senator and former governor Reutemann is one of Argentina’s most respected politicians

A leading and respected Argentine Senator forecasted he is certain that President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner will be seeking re-election in the October presidential elections, and assured that her recent clash with the organized labour CGT unions’ umbrella are “nothing but mere disagreements.”

“I would be really surprised if she decided not to run. I’m sure she will” said Santa Fe Senator and former governor Carlos Reutemann after casting this weekend his ballot in the Santa Fe gubernatorial primaries.

Reutemann also minimized the conflict between President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and the CGT leader Hugo Moyano assuring that “they may have some disagreements, but they know each other and they’ve worked together for a long time”.

The former Formula 1 pilot and who has always been considered a top candidate for the Argentine presidency said that “it’s been some time since I decided I won’t be a candidate” for any elected post this coming elections in spite of the repeated requests from the opposition.

“I’m not a candidate. It’s quite some time since I am not a candidate”, and when asked about contacts with opposition groups, Reutemann was definitive, “the Federal Peronism no longer exists; it belongs to the past”.

Reutemann belong to Argentina’s hegemonic Peronist movement (a catch all organization that brings together the whole political spectrum from right to left) and therefore can include President Cristina Fernandez Victory Front and several opposition groups that identify themselves as ‘Federal Peronism’.

The Santa Fe senator added that the CGT board “has been working with this government from the very beginning in 2003. It’s the same group of people. They have some clashes, some short circuits, but they understand each other”

Distanced from the Federal Peronism, to which for a brief period he belonged, the two times governor and current Senator admitted that the economic indices of Argentina, “as well as in the rest of regional economies” are very good but he attributed them to the “strong international tail wind”.

Reutemann who is a farmer said that the Argentine agriculture sector situation “is the same as when the 2008 conflict” and that the big help “comes from international prices”, because government policies for the farming sector “remain unchanged”.

The former F1 pilot with no political background was invited in the nineties by then Peronist President Carlos Menem to run for governor of Santa Fe, the fourth most important electoral circuit. Since then he has repeated as governor, was elected Senator and has one of the best public opinion ratings as an honest, transparent, trusted candidate for any post including president.

Short spoken, his brief or long silences are always being interpreted by Argentine political analysts who consider him the president Argentines would like to have but will never make it because he’s not at ease with the Argentine political system.