MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina: Alberto and Cristina make joint appearance again

CFK suggested the President “take care of the dollars” and avoid an “import festival.”

Argentine President Alberto Fernández and Vice-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (CFK) spoke to each other once again Friday during the celebration of the state-run oil company YPF's 100th anniversary.

They had last been seen together March 1 for the opening session of this year's Legislature.

“Alberto, there is a national sport of seizing the Central Bank reserves with different mechanisms, especially with a gap like the one we have. I told you that you had the pen. What I ask you to do is to use it, to use it with those who have to give things to the country. That does not mean fighting, but it is necessary, and that society knows the effort we have to make and that they have to make,” the former President said.

CFK fired a heavy salvo against her successor and Alberto's predecessor Mauricio Macri. She had a video played in which Macri's Economy Minister Nicolás Dujovne talked about the debt and the problems left by the Kirchnerite government in 2015 to access the credit market.

“Hello, how are you, here is the quirky, African, sub-Saharan,” CFK ironized. “With mistakes, with manners that many did not like, our political space, in those 12 years, got us out of debt; we recovered YPF and paid the [bank deposits withdrawing restrictions decreed in late 2001 known as] corralito.”

She also warned that nothing during her tenure “was magic” and suggested the President “take care of the dollars” and avoid an “import festival.”

“To the one who wants to govern without tensions and conflicts, I recommend him to run for the presidency of Switzerland,” she also pointed out.

President Alberto praised the Vice-President for the expropriation of YPF and underlined what a privilege it had been to be Cabinet Chief under Néstor Kirchner. Then he endorsed all comments about Macri's government, and pointed against the opposition for “pounding on the discouragement of Argentines”.

“Cristina is also right. In the talk I had with the president of Techint I raised my concern so that they make their contribution. Making money is not indecent. What is indecent is that the profit only remains in the hands of a few and poverty is distributed to millions,” the President stressed.

“Argentina has an enormous opportunity for the future. What we most need is that those who manage Argentina as their own ranch do not take over power in Argentina,” he added.

“What we must do most is to deepen our efforts, to become strong. Those of us who have a moral duty to the most neglected should work in unity. May the last ones come first; nobody is saved alone. I will continue asking all my colleagues to help me to build the fair, free and sovereign Argentina that Perón and Evita dreamed of, that Cristina and Néstor dreamed of and that I dream of,” President Fernández said.