The political armistice appears to have finally been concluded. The Vice President of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, gave a long speech this Friday in which, for the first time, she did not publicly attack or humiliate President Alberto Fernández. Yes, he had a goal. Kirchner cracked down on former Economy Minister Martín Guzmán, who announced his resignation on Saturday without prior notice and via social media. It was “an act of enormous political irresponsibility”, “ingratitude” and “institutional destabilization”.
Martín Guzmán left the government at the weekend. It was a very hard blow for President Fernández, who had defended his government against the ruthless attacks of Kircherism for more than two years. After reaching an agreement with the IMF, Kirchner began a slow but persistent demolition in January. The consequence was the departure of Guzmán, but also the final break with Fernández. Eventually, the fear of chaos brought the President and his Vice President closer together. In the week after Guzmán’s departure, inflation skyrocketed, Argentina’s debt securities collapsed and the central bank burned $700 million of its reserves to stem the peso’s depreciation. When in doubt, government spokeswoman Gabriela Cerruti even had to make it clear that “the president has control over the country”.
The acceleration of the crisis had a balm on the fighting in the palace. When Cristina Kirchner announced that she would be speaking at an event in El Calafate, the Patagonian town where she spends her free time, social media wondered who the minister to be kicked out of the cabinet would be. In his last two appearances, Production, Matías Kulfas and Guzmán lost their positions. “I’m not going to beat up a minister, everyone stay calm,” he said at the beginning. And immediately he threw himself on Guzmán. “I believe that [su renuncia] it was an act of political irresponsibility and also an act of institutional destabilization. The world as it is, the country as it is, the dollar as it is. Tweeting the president about it seems fine to me. It was an act of immense ingratitude to the President. This president had backed this economics minister like no other, even against the forces of his coalition. Did he deserve that?” Kirchner wondered.
Fernández’s defense of Guzmán eventually ruined his relationship with Kirchner. The vice president never accepted the agreement the former minister signed with the IMF in January, blaming her for a budget adjustment that would sooner or later result in Peronism’s defeat in the 2023 general election. Her son, MP Máximo Kirchner, resigned from leadership of the government bloc in contradiction to this Guzmán agreement. Since then, the relationship in the leadership of Peronism has only worsened.
“When the differences we maintained because of the terms we agreed with the IMF, all of journalism, all of the opposition, all of the establishment came out to talk about the economy minister’s sanity. And who was the irrational? Now, looking back over the past period, I think the minister’s support was a confrontation with us,” Kirchner said on Friday. If that was the goal, it was successful. But the elections are approaching, and Kirchner fears losing what is left of his political capital. The new Economics Minister, Silvina Batakis, has her approval.
The big question is how much autonomy the official will have to uphold seemingly conflicting agendas. Upon taking office on Monday, he said that meeting the budget deficit and monetary issuance targets that Guzmán had agreed with the fund was in his plans. President Fernández asked him when he offered him the job. On Tuesday, Batakis IMF boss Kristalina Georgieva said personally. But these goals are a dirty word for Krichnerism, which sees them as a harsh adjustment with disastrous consequences. Batakis is now a minister between two waters.