MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Zanini, admirer of Mao’s China, the strongman in absence of Cristina Fernandez

Every morning candidates, governors, mayors and top officials call on Zanini office at Casa Rosada (Government House)

His nickname is ‘El chino’ (the Chinese) because of his strong Maoist tendencies when a law student. Long a solicitor, Carlos Zanini is Argentine president Cristina Fernandez (and of her deceased husband Nestor Kirchner) most trusted aide and top of the Kirchnerite ‘nomenclature’.

Every morning candidates, governors, mayors and top officials call on his office at Casa Rosada (Government House). Media shy and low profile, although nobody questions his instructions, Zanini’s post is Legal and Technical Secretary of the Argentine Executive.

Born in Cordoba in 1954, his political career has been close to that of the Kirchner couple. He held several political posts in Nestor Kirchner’s Santa Cruz. While a militant of the “Young fellows with Peron” he met Rudy Ulloa, chauffeur of Kirchner and later Ricardo Etchegaray, currently head of Argentina’s tax revenue office, AFIP.

Next to Kirchner he was Santa Cruz cabinet minister; lawmaker and president of the provincial Supreme Court, from where he was the legal architect of two provincial constitutional amendments and of the electoral system which allowed the governor to accumulate consecutive mandates, among other issues.

Since 2003, Zanini is Legal and Technical Secretary of the Argentine presidency and from this office he drafted the legal framework to take over the private pension funds, the controversial media law, the dispute over the Central Bank reserves, the electoral reform and the government funded ‘Soccer for All’ program. He also participated in the handling of candidate names for electoral slates.

Following the death of Nestor Kirchner, Zanini became even closer to widow Cristina. He is an undisputed member of the very short list of the Argentine government and the emotional support of the president. According to Argentine media reports the short list is made up of Cristina’s son Maximo Kirchner, Carlos Zanini and Intelligence chief Hector Iscazuriaga, also a former member of Santa Cruz governments.

In the absence of President Cristina Fernandez and her delicate medical condition following the successful surgery, Zanini is synonymous of the government’s strong-man and the man who makes the main decisions.

“The current president is Carlos Zanini, who has achieved a great feat: he leads a government with strong Peronist roots although he is decisively anti-Peronist. Of all government members the man less respected by hardcore Peronists is precisely Zanini”, according to writer Jorge Asís who has also occupied political and diplomatic posts with the government of Carlos Menem.

Vice president and acting president Amado Boudou is treated as a decorative figure, to comply with protocol since he is considered more a liability than an asset because of his several pending court cases that could send him to jail for corruption. Furthermore his presidential offices are in the neighbouring Banco Nacion and not in Casa Rosada, where Zanini and his team make the decisions and run everyday business.
When Cristina Fernandez underwent thyroid surgery in January 2012 and spent almost a month in convalescence the same system was applied.