MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Macri finally called Fernandez and had a “long and good” phone call, hopefully to help stabilize the economy

Fernández acknowledged having received a text message from the president. “I was teaching at the university, saw the message but couldn’t answer”

Argentine President Mauricio Macri finally, on Wednesday, reached out to the winner of Sunday’s primary vote -- initially through a Whatsapp message. The message led to a “long and good” phone call between the two, the first since Alberto Fernandez’s resounding victory turned him into the clear favorite to win the Oct. 27 election.

“He’s willing to help as much as possible to ensure that this electoral process, and all the uncertainty it creates, has the least possible impact on the economy and Argentines,” Macri tweeted after the call. “We agreed to keep an open line between us”.

President Macri's morning was filled with gestures to the public. After his apology to voters for Monday’s press conference and the announcement of new economic measures to increase consumption, Macri sent a message to Fernandez suggesting the duo “bring ourselves together to speak.”

A spokesman for Fernández confirmed the phone call took place. Earlier, Fernández himself acknowledged having received a text message from the president. “I was teaching at the university, saw the message but couldn’t answer,” he told reporters outside of his campaign headquarters in Buenos Aires.

During an interview with a local radio station, Fernández revealed that the fifteen minutes talk was “good, cordial and frank”, and told president Macri to call him whenever he feels. However he also pointed out that the government’s recent economic announcement “arrived late,” and put in doubt the possibility of a meeting with the current president.

“I gave the president my opinion of what was going on and insisted that I'm merely a presidential candidate, I'm not president elect and the management of the economy was the president's job. But we must ensure and preserve institutions and that all evolves peacefully”.

Fernandez added, “we have different visions of the country” and thus “it's not easy for me to endorse his policies”. But anyhow dialogue was very good and a good way of transmitting calm to the country, the people and markets. We all want the economy to stabilize“.

As to the package of measures announced by Macri to stimulate consumption, Fernandez said ”they are not bad“ but added that ”in the current context they are highly risky“. But ”I want them to work out...I don't want them to fail, Hopefully they are useful for Argentina, and so be it“.

Macri also indicated that he had spoken to other presidential candidates and ”I will insist with those I wasn't able to contact. I'm available the 24 hours, I want to meet them, we need to transmit calm in this electoral process that has started”.

Markets have been eager for signs of policy coordination and concrete measures to staunch the sell-off. So far, however, investors seem to be unconvinced – the peso added to losses for a third consecutive day and bonds sank further into distress with investment firms boosting odds of a debt default in coming years.