Argentines want to quickly turn the page on the four years of Alberto Fernández’s presidency. The Peronist came to power in the midst of a new economic crisis with a double promise: to unite Argentines and begin a recovery of income for those who needed it most, those who did not even have enough to eat. He failed at both. The political rift widened during his term and poverty also grew.
Fernández delivers a country on the verge of economic collapse and in which having a job is no longer a guarantee of making ends meet: there are only 6% unemployed, but poverty exceeds 40%. 10% of the inhabitants of Argentina are indigent, that is, what they earn is not even enough to buy food; In 2019, that figure was 8%, while poverty was almost five points lower. Among the causes of the deterioration, inflation close to 150% stands out, devouring income, especially those of workers without a formal contract or unions that defend their labor rights.
“The economic performance of Alberto Fernández’s administration was very weak,” emphasizes economist Juan Manuel Telechea. “All the relevant variables of the economy—such as inflation, poverty, salaries, activity—were greatly deteriorated,” he adds. Some numbers are even fictitious, such as the official exchange rate, set at 400 pesos per dollar, when in the parallel market the US currency sells for almost a thousand. The price that Argentines pay for public transportation, gas, electricity, water and gasoline is not the market price either. If it were not subsidized, the value of these goods and services would be much higher and very few would be able to afford them; Today, the one who is not closed is the State, which has a fiscal deficit of 3% of GDP.
Argentina’s collapse is partly explained by factors external to the Government, such as the shock caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the large debt with the International Monetary Fund inherited from the Government of Mauricio Macri (2015-2019) and the loss of more of 20,000 million dollars in exports this 2023 due to the worst drought in the last 60 years. However, internal differences between Fernández and his powerful vice president, Cristina Kirchner, prevented the Government from adopting a clear course to overcome the obstacles and left it adrift for the last two years.
“It was a fratricidal fight in public,” summarizes political scientist Sergio Morresi. “The result was that it didn’t go one way or the other and it was really very negative for governability,” he continues. The Argentines reacted with anger and disgust in the face of a power dispute that seemed far removed from increasingly pressing economic problems. Macri had said goodbye with an inflation of 54%. In 2020, dragged down by the pandemic, it dropped to 36%, but from there it rebounded at great speed: 50.9% in 2021, 90% in 2022 and this year it will be around 150%.
Fernández hands over control to Javier Milei with popularity at rock bottom: seven out of ten Argentines disapprove of his management. Polls show how he squandered the political capital with which he arrived at the Casa Rosada after having won the presidential elections against Macri. In 2019, the union of the different currents of Peronism in a coalition government generated great expectations. Once in power, initial decisions such as convening a round table against hunger and seeking agreements to stop the rise in prices were seen as a relief for a punished population.
The president was about to complete his third month in office when the first cases of covid-19 were detected in the country. The virus had wreaked havoc in Europe and Fernández acted quickly: he ordered a strict lockdown to prevent the spread of the disease and give the health system time to prepare. The population accepted and applauded this preventive measure, as well as the first extensions that he announced together with the mayor of Buenos Aires, the opposition Horacio Rodríguez Larreta.
Fernández’s positive image reached its peak at that time, touching 80%. But from there everything went downhill. The more than four months of confinement were a very tough test for the population, but when the restrictions began to be relaxed, Argentina found itself involved in the same drama as many other countries before: the number of infections and deaths skyrocketed. Furthermore, the decision to keep schools closed broke the fragile truce that had been reached with the opposition and also turned families against the Government who lost job opportunities because they had no one to leave their children with.
The legalization of abortion, on the penultimate day of 2020, and the arrival of the first vaccines against covid-19, at the beginning of 2021, were two milestones of the Fernández Government. But the incipient vaccination campaign was clouded by the news that the Ministry of Health operated what they called a “VIP vaccination center”: having the correct contacts guaranteed skipping the line to access a life-saving jab.
The scandal caused the resignation of the Minister of Health, Ginés González García, which was the first of several more. The most popular came a few months later in the form of a photograph. The first lady, Fabiola Yáñez, posed in it with the president and a dozen friends in the presidential villa in Olivos. The guests at Yañez’s birthday smiled at the camera without masks, although the meeting was held in the middle of 2020, when a strict quarantine was still in force and any gathering behind closed doors was prohibited.
The president apologized and paid a fine of $25,000 for violating the confinement. The damage, however, was irreparable: in the 2021 legislative elections, Peronism fell behind Macri’s opposition coalition Together for Change. In those same elections, the economist Javier Milei won a deputy seat with a tough message against “the political caste”, crime and corruption. With Milei, the doors of the Argentine Congress opened to the extreme right. Two years later, Fernández passes on the presidential baton to him.
Subscribe here to the EL PAÍS América newsletter and receive all the key information on current events in the region.
#Alberto #Fernández #leaves #presidency #Argentina #brink #economic #collapse