President Alberto Fernandez once again trusted this Sunday that the Frente de Todos (FdT) will triumph in the next electionsdid not rule out running again for the first magistracy and asserted: “The only thing I don’t want is for Mauricio Macri or anyone in his circle to win again.”
In addition, Fernández highlighted once again the good relationship with the president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva; He vindicated Mercosur and maintained that the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro – questioned by the Argentine political opposition – is “more than invited” to the Celac summit, which will be held this Tuesday in the city of Buenos Aires.
“I am sure that the Frente de Todos will win. If you think I’m the candidate, it could be me or one of our other leaders. The only thing I don’t want is for Macri to win again. Macri or any of his circle, Macri and what he represents, which is the opposite of what we have done. They are all Macri from the other side“, he said in reference to Horacio Rodríguez Larreta and Patricia Bullrich, other presidential candidates of the PRO.
In an interview with the newspaper Newspaper, Fernández said that “the disaster of the Macri government was very difficult to achieve. Starting right after the coronavirus pandemic, ruling two years after the pandemic and then entering a war that changed the global economic equation.”
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Taking all this context into account, it is a government (that of the FdT) that has been working well. It is true that the pandemic affected us a lot, but also that we quickly sought vaccines and provided assistance to Argentines,” he said.
And he added that “today the economy has serious problems, but on the other hand there has been a high r
employment recovery and for the first time
Argentina will grow for three years in a row, in addition to having restructured our debt. Now, if you ask me if I’m satisfied, no, the poverty and inflation figures are very worrying.”
On the other hand, he said that he is “finishing” his mandate “at the head of the
celac“and defined the regional bloc as
“an important mechanism” in “these difficult times”, since it allows “to bring the voice of Latin America to the Summit of the Americas and the G7 and to participate in the discussion on the conflict between Ukraine and Russia”.
“The year that is beginning is decisive because the majority of
the consequences of the war will begin to be seen now. And when the FAO (United Nations food organization) says that 300 million people will die of hunger, we are very concerned, because we know that many of those people may be from Latin America,” he warned.
He also warned that “we are living through a particularly turbulent moment for the region, in which we have to
work to guarantee the institutionality of democracy. It is a good time for Brazil to return to Celac.”
“It is too important a country to be absent from international forums, as happened with (Jair) Bolsonaro. It was very hard not to see the country with the voice it always had. Now,
Celac begins a stage of regional integration in which Brazil will have a leading role“, he highlighted.
Fernández admitted that the last few years “have been bad for Mercosur. But not so much because of the performance” of Uruguayan President Luis “Lacalle Pou.”
“I even think it’s great that Lula visits him soon after. I have a good relationship with Lacalle Pou. I can disagree with ideas, but personally I never had a problem, it wasn’t even close to being similar to what my relationship was with Bolsonaro.
With Lacalle Pou I was always able to talk. What I don’t agree with is your method.“, large.
And then, referring to the bilateral alliances that Uruguay seeks with other powers, he said that Montevideo must seek objectives that can be achieved by being a partner of the region.
“This is the role of the smaller countries, while that of the larger ones is to address the asymmetries that exist, to remove obstacles for the smaller countries,” he said.
He also warned that the recent coup attempts in Brazil “should draw the attention of the country and the continent” and stressed that “Lula solved the problem very well, summoning the other two powers and defending Brazil’s institutions.”
He clarified that “something like this would hardly happen in Argentina, because we have Armed Forces aligned with institutions. But we had a very serious episode, which was the attack on Vice President Cristina Kirchner. There is a certain sector of the Latin American right that thinks that violence is a form of way of fighting democracy, of threatening society. We must be vigilant, not allow this to happen anywhere.”
In this sense, he maintained that “in Latin America we have a right that is very strong,” for example in Chile, Colombia and even Argentina, where, he said, “I won, but the right had 41% of the votes.”
“It is more difficult to build large majorities and you have to learn to manage it and defend the institutional framework. Political debate, rivalry, is one thing, threats to the institutional framework are another, as has been happening in Peru,” he warned.
In relation to the war in Ukraine, he stated that “I did not stop talking to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, but we never supported the invasion.” He recalled that when Putin called him to congratulate him on Argentina’s winning the World Cup, “I told him again that we had to sit down to resolve this issue. And I kept clarifying that Argentina does not support this invasion.”
On the controversy generated around the possible presence of Maduro in the deliberations of Celac, he said: “Venezuela is part of Celac and Maduro is more than invited. As far as I know, he will.”
“Argentina’s position in relation to Venezuela is to promote, through the Contact Group, the dialogues that are taking place in Mexico. We believe that they can give good results. The idea is that Venezuelans decide among Venezuelans, not with us,” clarified.
Regarding economic relations between Argentina and Brazil, he reiterated that “we will discuss it during Lula’s visit; Brazil continues to be Argentina’s main trading partner, but much has been lost in recent years. One possibility that excites us is to work more in the production of electric cars, to use more lithium, which exists in large quantities in Argentina, to further boost our integrated car production.”
Asked if he and Vice President Cristina Kirchner are “fighting over Lula’s friendship” and if Lula is “worried” about these supposed frictions, Fernández laughingly replied: “I may have differences with the vice president, but if we have a coincidence it is that Lula is a very special person for us. There are two parallel links. But it is true that (Lula) is concerned that the Peronists remain united.”