MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

CFK sends open letter to President Fernández urging him to honor the will of the Argentine people

CFK said she had suffered a vice president who was a declared opponent to her government. “That will never happen with me,” she wrote.

Argentine Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (CFK) Thursday wrote an open letter to President Alberto Fernández demanding that the latter honours “the will of the Argentine people” who elected him in 2019.

“As I write these lines, I have the television turned on but muted and I read a graph: ´Alberto harassed by Cristina´. No ... it is not me. As much as they try to hide it, it is the result of the election and reality,” the former two-time President noted. “I have even suffered a vice president who was declared an opponent of our government. Argentines sleep easy ... that will never happen with me,” she stressed.

CFK also addressed the ruling coalition Frente de Todos (FdT) defeat last Sunday at the Open, Mandatory and Simultaneous Primary (PASO) elections. “The day after such a political catastrophe, one listened to some officials and it seemed that nothing had happened in this country, feigning normality and, above all, screwing themselves onto their armchairs. Do you seriously believe that it is not necessary, after such a defeat, to publicly present the resignations and that the attitude of the civil servants to facilitate the reorganization of his government is known?” she wrote.

”On Tuesday the 14th, my last meeting with the President of the Nation took place again in Olivos. 48 hours had elapsed without him communicating with me and it seemed prudent to call him and tell him that I had to speak with him. I deliberately let 48 hours pass, to see if he called (I must say that of the 19 meetings, most were at my initiative). There I told him that it was necessary to relaunch his government and I proposed names such as [Tucumán] Governor Juan Manzur for Cabinet Chief,“ the VP added.

”As I am not a liar and much less a hypocrite (I never say in public what I do not hold in private and vice versa), I must mention that during the year 2021 I had 19 work meetings in Olivos with the President of the Nation,” she went on.

“... I always raised with the President what for me constituted a delicate social situation and which resulted, among other things, in salary arrears, lack of price control - especially in food and medicine- and lack of employment, without ignoring, obviously, the impact of the two pandemics: first the macrista and the sanitary one 99 days after taking office. I also always stressed the lack of effectiveness in different areas of government,” pointed out CFK, who also said she believed ”a wrong fiscal adjustment policy was being carried out that was harming economic activity and, therefore, on society as a whole and that, undoubtedly, this was going to have electoral consequences.”

Last Sunday's PASO elections showed the FdT losing in 17 of the 24 electoral districts, including the traditional Peronist stronghold of the province of Buenos Aires (“an inexcusable thermometer of the social and economic temperature of our country,” according to CFK's letter), and which accounts for the bulk of the presidential one-district constituency for 2023.

President Fernández has so far accepted none of the resignations submitted to him on Wednesday by several ministers as well as other high-ranking officials.

“I sincerely trust that with the same strength and conviction that he faced the pandemic, the President will not only relaunch his government but will sit down with his Minister of Economy to look at the budget numbers,” CFK also said.