• Politics Alberto Fernández deepens the crisis of a government without direction
  • Tension Cristina Kirchner stages before the whole country her weariness with Alberto Fernández

Four years after starting the road to the Casa Rosada driven by the finger of Cristina Kirchner, President Alberto Fernández resigned this Friday to seek re-election. Thus, Peronism must now decide between defining its candidate for the presidency in a primary election or aiming again for a direct nomination.

"On December 10 I will deliver the presidential sash to whoever has been elected at the polls by popular vote," the president said in a video of more than seven minutes in which he glossed his supposed successes in almost four years of government.


"It's clear that we didn't achieve everything we set out to do. We are hurt by families in poverty, we are hurt by low incomes, we are hurt by projects and dreams that could not be realized. But despite so many difficulties, I have one certainty: I did not take a single measure against our people," argued Fernández, cornered by inflation that far exceeds one hundred percent annually and strong devaluation pressures on the peso.


The possibility of Vice President Fernández de Kirchner being a candidate for a third term in the Casa Rosada seems distant. The former head of state insists that she will not run for office, although her closest circle pressures her to at least seek a senate.

No supports

Fernández cherished for months the idea of betting on reelection, an undertaking in which he had almost no support within Peronism. The polls have also been indicating, for months, a sharp drop in the intention to vote for the party founded by Juan Perón, which could even be third in the October elections, surpassed by the opposition of Together for Change and the libertarian Javier Milei.

Peronism, the most efficient electoral machine in recent decades in Argentina, is atomized and aimless: Sergio Massa, the economy minister facing the threat of total social and financial collapse, continues to dream of being the presidential candidate. Paradoxes of Argentine politics, Massa embodies the right wing of Peronism, but has the support of the vice president, who embodies a kind of left wing.

Argentine media report that during a meeting Thursday at the presidential estate in Olivos, Massa unsubtly pressured Fernandez to step down from the presidential candidacy. The economy minister, who moves today as if he were a prime minister, believes that the head of state is an element of disturbance for the deranged local economy.

Fernández bets on Daniel Scioli, former governor of the province of Buenos Aires and defeated in the 2015 presidential elections by Mauricio Macri, although the question is whether, now that he is an official lame duck, he will have the power to impose some kind of course.

Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, mayor of Buenos Aires and presidential candidate for the opposition, was clear in his reaction to Fernández's announcement: "It is another example of the failure of this government, of all Kirchnerism and of Cristina Kirchner. We can't be worse off than we are."

Vice President Fernández de Kirchner did not make herself felt, although no one doubts her relief at the decision that the president was forced to make: her contempt for Fernández, with whom she does not speak and whom she adorns with a large catalog of insults in private conversations, is at this point legendary.

  • Alberto Fernandez
  • Argentina
  • Mauricio Macri
  • Daniel Scioli
  • Argentina Elections

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