MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine farmers’ leader apologizes for offensive remarks against CFK voters

Biolcati “dancing with the stars”

The head of Argentina’s powerful Rural Society Hugo Biolcati rectified his previous controversial statements towards the 50% of the population that chose to vote for President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, CFK, during the August 14 primary elections.

“Our organization deeply respects the percentage obtained by the President in the last referendum. It’s worthy of attention. It’s highly respectable,” he said, adding that the landslide victory “forces all of society – even business leaders – to reflect” without leaving behind “our logic demands”.

“Maybe we should reconsider the way we engage in dialogue. Maybe we should find a more mature way of doing it. There are, however, some issues that remain to be discussed. Having obtained the 50% of vote doesn’t clear the way for investment and development, especially with such a complicated scenario on the horizon” explained the president of Argentina’s big farmers’ organization with a history of 140 years.

Biolcati’s derogatory comments towards those who voted for Cristina Fernandez threatened to dissolve the farmers ‘Liaison Board’ which was so successful in stopping further increases in grains and oilseeds’ export taxes in 2008 and led to a major defeat of the Kirchner couple in Congress and later at the mid term election of 2009.

Biolcati accused Mrs. Kirchner’s voters of “only caring about watching Marcelo Tinelli’s TV Show,” Bailando por un Sueño (the local version of Dancing with the Stars), and “paying for their plasma screen TV’s.”

When asked about his controversial statement about “the plasma screen TVs and Tinelli,” Biolcati replied that his intention was to make a distinction between “the vote coming from farmers and the vote coming from people who live in town and cities in the interior. The farming producer definitely didn’t vote for the President, and that is evidenced by the percentages she obtained in provinces like Santa Fe, Córdoba or Rosario. She won there too, but not by a landslide.”

“People who live in the interior, where the money is, people who sell trucks, build homes; people who work as mechanics, bakers, butchers… those people are doing well. They work all day, go back home and put Tinelli on their big plasma screen TV’s. This is highly respectable. I wanted to convey an idea of comfort. Those people are the ones who voted for Cristina,” he concluded.

At the time of the comments the head of the Argentine Agrarian Federation (FAA) and one of the four members of the ‘Liaison Board’, Eduardo Buzzi, blasted Biolcati and said he would join the collective “repudiation” of his recent statements.

Buzzi said Biolcatti had committed an act of “sincericide,” meaning that his statements showed his real essence, “without wearing any make-up.” He added “I join the population and repudiate his remarks. They were wrong” and the incident “gravely hurts the farming sector’s representation”.

He assured that FAA “was quite displeased since the popular vote must be respected.”

“The farming sector has come out in support of the President; therefore we cannot object or attack such a reality. We have to accept it, deal with it and figure out a way to present the problems that farming producers still have to face with while helping society understand them,” he concluded.

On Monday August 15, following the primary Buzzi admitted that the farming sector’s Liaison Board was “slapped in the face” after the sweeping win of Cristina Fernández.

Likewise, Buzzi considered that “many opposition leaders as well the Liaison Board had the sensation that the government could be defeated, but they were obviously slapped in the face”. Furthermore, the small farmers’ representative got self critical and confessed “We (Liaison Board) should have not promoted such triumphalism and rather stay more cautious.”

Alfredo De Angeli another farmers’ leader who proved to be an excellent communicator during the long strike against the government of President Cristina Fernandez also criticized Biolcati’s comments and said “the man has gone bananas”.

De Angeli said that there are a lot of people making money with this government and voted for her (CFK), “that’s fine and normal. Biolcati missed the target by far”.