Cristina Fernández de Kirchner used a 33-page document to break the silence she maintained during the first two months of Javier Milei's government. The former president, the leading figure of the opposition, regained the centrality of Argentina's political agenda this Wednesday by attacking the “wild adjustment program” of Milei, whom she sees as “an economic showman in the world.” [Casa] Pink.” Kirchner predicted that his economic policies would increase unemployment “and social despair in a kind of planned chaos,” paving the way for the dollarization sought by the president. Prominent members of the administration responded to him and even asked him to shut up to keep.
Inflation was 20.6% monthly in January, rising to 254.2% year-on-year, the highest in South America. Hours before the official number was published, Kirchner asked Milei about the core of his economic policy, the fight against inflation. The former president questioned whether the main cause of the rise in prices was the currency issue covering the budget deficit, claiming that the dollar shortage also played a role. “Forced debt in this currency only exacerbates this deficiency by exacerbating the already known and structural external constraints on our bimonetary economy,” he wrote.
In the text he speaks in the plural – it could be in the name of the Peronist coalition Unión por la Patria (UxP), but he does not mention it explicitly – and, after a long historical review, stimulates in-depth discussions about the Argentine state reforms, against which Kirchnerism has resisted for years, including the health care system and changes to labor regulations.
The seemingly outstretched hand in the debate contrasts with the fierce opposition UxP maintained during the nearly two-month parliamentary debate on the state abolition mega-bill put forward by Milei. The Peronist coalition – the first minority in the Chamber of Deputies with 99 deputies compared to La Libertad Avanza de Milei's 38 – voted as a bloc against this law, which was eventually withdrawn by the government after rejecting key articles.
The government responded to the letter on several fronts. Milei limited himself to retweeting the message of an economist who pointed out that “dollarization is the only way to (partially) avoid the excesses of Argentine populism,” leaving the heavy ammunition to his most experienced ministers.
“The truth is that this lack of self-criticism is striking,” Interior Minister Guillermo Francos told Miter radio. “This lack of syndic responsibility, I don't even say political, to take responsibility for the catastrophe in which they brought down Argentina and have the courage to express themselves as if he was not responsible for anything.”
Security Minister Patricia Bullrich and Economy Minister Luis Caputo decided on a direct confrontation with the opposition leader. “You appear again just to gloat over the social, cultural and economic destruction you have wrought,” tweeted the first. “I invite you to show a little dignity and be silent,” asked the second. In the text, Kirchner spoke out against Caputo's appointment and considered him to be the “architect of the Mauricio Macri government's serial debt and the return of the IMF to Argentina” and raised the tone of the exchange across the networks. “He is not the first in his family to try to silence me,” he said, referring to the case of his attempted murder in 2022. The complaint accused the Federal Revolution group of being behind the to have been involved in a failed plot and to have received funds from her Caputos Hermanos company, which was however dismissed by the court.
Kirchner's message goes against the flow of short, chin-length texts that dominate social networks, and many have even joined the debate without reading it. “I didn't have time to read 33 pages because I was working,” presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni apologized when questioned at a news conference, although he slipped up that now is “time for ideas that don't fail.” . Social leader and former Peronist presidential candidate Juan Grabois did the same from the other side: “I still couldn't read the document @CFKArgentinabut because of the reactions of the white jet Caputo, the milicoid pancake Franco and the narco-capitalist [José Luis] Espert, I assume you have some truths to tell.”
Kirchner's words give him back a centrality that he has lost since stepping down from power two months ago. His silence had already begun when he remained in the background during Sergio Massa's presidential campaign. The political storm unleashed ends the summer holidays in the South and heralds a year of extreme political polarization amid the severe economic crisis the country is currently experiencing. The start of classes is at risk because in some provinces there is a lack of funds to pay teachers' salaries and more and more workers are facing difficulties due to the rapid loss of purchasing power. According to official figures, in 2023 alone, salaries rose by 152.7%, while inflation rose by 211.4%.