MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

CFK calls for ‘national unity’ and brushes aside re-re-re-election rumours

The first elected and re-elected woman president in Argentina

Re-elected President Cristina Fernández urged Argentines to join in “national unity” and asked to “avoid being distracted by useless confrontations”. She also sent a strong message brushing aside increasing rumours that ultra-Kirchner followers were ready to amend the constitution for an “indefinite re-election”

“If there are things that can be improved, then they should tell us how to do it, but we have to become a different country, in which whoever follows next gets to build on top of what their predecessors already built,” she stated.

“I dream of an Argentina that has continuity, and for that continuity to become a national project,” the President added at her Victory Front headquarters in a downtown Buenos Aires hotel.

The president also named one by one the South American leaders who had contacted her to congratulate her on victory and did something similar with all the opposition candidates, calling on the audience that started to disapprove to keep quiet and “not act small, because this is a very important night: let us not be small, let us be great”.

“In victory you must always be greater, more generous, more grateful”, and immediately recalled the figure of her late husband. “I want to thank especially to someone who can’t call me again, but who is the great architect of tonight’s victory” in reference to Nestor Kirchner.

In another passage she subtly referred to re-re-election rumours which could be implemented through a constitutional amendment for which the ruling coalition is expected to have sufficient votes in the new Congress.

Highlighting her political career Cristina Fernandez admitted she had reached levels “she had never dreamed of: not only did I have the honour of being the first woman elected president (in Argentina) but also I have the honour of being the first woman re-elected president; what else can I expect…”

CFK then went on to stress that she is a 58-year old woman, who has been in politics since a teenager and who wants “nothing but to keep expanding the political project, aimed at helping improving the life of 40 million Argentines” and making Argentine politics and political parties more transparent through primaries and amendments to media access “which we have achieved in these few last month”.

“I’m not motivated by any interests, except for the profound love I feel for Argentina” and for her deceased husband, “who is the architect of this victory” she said.

But she also called for recognition: “when voters speak and express their will and decide in free transparent elections, that decision must be respected”.