President Alberto Fernández affirmed today that Argentina is “an independent country and has the right to associate with whomever it deems appropriate” for its interests and clarified that its “enemy is not any of the comrades who are in the Front of All” but ” Its adversary is macrismo, it is the recalcitrant right”.
In addition, he asserted that the Frente de Todos has “concern for the weakest sectors of society. Cristina (Kirchner) said that politics is representation of interests and we represent the middle class and the impoverished sectors of Argentina, we do not want to represent to the financial world, to the banks, to the de facto power of Argentina”.
“The only aspiration I have is for the Frente de Todos to win. I want us to choose the one who can make us win. I think there are actors who can appear on stage and be candidates,” said the President in statements to the YouTube channel “The method Rebound”.
Likewise, he assured that he sees “competitive Peronism” in the face of the elections and asked that they “listen to the things that our adversaries say.”
“We guarantee that we will continue working so that people can recover their jobs. Whatever the candidate is, they will preserve democracy, employment, growth, they will dedicate themselves to stopping inflation, they will dedicate themselves to those who have less” , assured the president.
And he criticized the presidential candidates and leaders of other parties who “speak with great detachment from the humblest sectors of Argentina, with great indifference to the middle sectors.”
“When the pandemic broke out, (former President Mauricio) Macri told me not to stop the economy, let those who have to die die. I told him that the economy recovers, lives don’t. And I was right,” Fernández asserted. and detailed that “we have 30 consecutive months of growth in formal employment.”
“People are going to realize that we are not the same. They stopped building hospitals, I had to build them in record time. They believed that universities had to stop opening them. We believe in public education, in science and technology, we bet on our scientists”, he reinforced.
Along these lines, the president indicated that his “enemy is not any of the comrades who are in the Frente de Todos” and clarified that his “adversary is macrismo, it is the recalcitrant right that did what it did in Argentina.”
In this sense, he stressed that the priority for Peronism is “that these guys (for Together for Change) do not return to power because now they explicitly say that they are going to end the vacation, that people have to be armed to defend themselves That’s what we have to avoid.”
“Let’s settle the differences between us as it is done in a democracy, that the people vote and elect the most representative,” stressed the head of state and asserted: “The more democracy we put into Peronism, the better it will be. We have thousands of candidates You just have to cheer them up.”
And he indicated that “the FdT represents a concern for the weakest sectors of society. We represent the middle class and impoverished sectors of Argentina. We do not want to represent the financial world, banks, the factual power.”
On the other hand, the President highlighted that the recent meeting with his counterpart from the United States Joe Biden “was a good meeting, much needed, unusual, that had a different thing, in which he spent time talking to me and a lot of time to sit the senior staff of your Government with the senior staff of my Government”.
“For an hour and a half we raised the doubts we had; he is very affectionate, he allowed us to have a good chat and we talked about how the United States can help Argentina. He understands what is happening to me because the same thing happened to him and He reminds me every time he sees me,” he said.
He added that “he is clear about the similarities between (Mauricio) Macri and (Donald) Trump, the link they have; he understands that the debt that Argentina has was a decision by Trump to favor his friend Macri. We have to make the debt, that was taken for political reasons, has the lowest possible cost for Argentine society, as we did when we signed the agreement”.
“He gave instructions in front of us so that our problems are addressed; we have a complicated 2023 due to the drought, we have to get through this year and for that we need help from credit funds,” he added.
Faced with the criticism received from various sectors, especially from the opposition, he maintained that “we are an independent country and we have the right to link up with whoever we deem convenient for Argentina.”
Regarding his political present and future, he maintained that “one day Cristina told me ‘it has to be you (the candidate for President) because the chances of me winning are not absolute and if I win they won’t let me govern and you could build dialogue with everyone’, we talked about it for three days”.
“It is an enormous honor to be President. I am going to finish this mandate with the peace of mind of having left everything of myself and with the honor of having been the President of the Argentine people. I have enormous affection for this town; if they had told me ‘I chose four years to be President’, he did not choose them. They were four terrible years, it is the sum of the IMF, Macri’s debt, the 54% inflation he left behind, the pandemic, the drought, the war,” he added.
“It is something that happens to humanity for the most part, it is a difficult time for humanity in which I had to govern,” he expanded.
He also maintained that the opposition “for years tried to get me to ‘hand over’ Cristina, but they don’t know me, because I would never do that, because Cristina doesn’t deserve it.”
And he marked, on the cause called Highway: “What worries me the most is the conviction of an innocent woman. She is sentenced with a judicial account that does not match the reality of what she did. We ended up talking about the proscription and not her innocence My rejection is condemnation, because he is innocent”.
“Politics is the art of managing reality. Peronists operate on reality within the system of the Rule of Law. Some comrades think that we are making the revolution but we are reformists. Peronism always respected democracy and changed many laws in favor of of the people,” he said.
He also affirmed that “I do not believe in the verticalism and in the personalist leadership of Peronism. The non-creation of ‘Albertismo’ is the product of my conviction. We already have too many ‘isms’. Before he died, Juan Domingo Perón told us to organize ourselves, that We owe it to ourselves to have a democratic organization. With Néstor (Kirchner) Peronism was renewed to a great extent and I think we have to renew once again and put an end to personalities.”
Fernández assured that “the Frente de Todos is a front for everyone, not mine. My colleagues voted for me so that we are all part of a front. Among colleagues we sit down, debate, discuss, and one has the decision. I am a Kirchnerist, I I founded it, I accompanied him to Kirchner and my colleagues laughed because they thought it was crazy. If there is something that is not among my plans, it is to end Kirchnerism, because I am part of that. My goal is to improve what we are”.
On the other hand, he referred to the war in Ukraine and pointed out that before the war took place, he asked Russian President Vladimir Putin not to start a war “after a pandemic” because “it would be a tragic event”, and the Russian head of state “told me that it was not going to happen; I felt a little disappointed because he lied to me,” said the Argentine leader.
Fernández also recalled that when the war began in Ukraine, the President spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin: “I told him that he was causing enormous damage in the southern hemisphere, which is where Russia has its ‘friends’. It was Russia that helped many African countries to stop being a colony. In Latin America, the vaccine made us very friendly with Russia and all of that is being lost. This war with Ukraine is affecting the link with the south.”
In addition, he pointed out that “Europe supports Ukraine in a relative way, they send weapons but not troops, they help with IMF loans.”
“Ukraine and Argentina are the countries most indebted to the IMF, but we both pay surcharges. Why don’t they take away our surcharges if they want to help?” Fernández questioned.