30 October 2007

Rule Cristina

To those who thought my post-election post was depressing, I have a few bits to justify my despair. This is from an interview with Joaquín Morales Solá, reprinted in La Nación — the first Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has given since she was elected, and in fact one of the very few interviews she's ever given to anyone.

  • Cristina's dreams: "I'd like us to be an exporting country like Germany." (Yes, Cristina, and I'd like to be a tall golden-haired Germanic god and drive a Mercedes. I think you got Botox into a place you shouldn't.)
  • About inflation: "There was an overreaction to the issue, to be expected during an election season." (The opposition bought up all the tomatoes in the country to make the price go up, I guess.)
  • The interviewer asks: "Were you disappointed at the vote of [people in the large] urban centers?". Cristina: "I think an urban center par excellence [= a prime example of an urban center] is Mendoza. It's a society with a very strong middle class. We won there by a very wide margin. There's also a middle class in Greater Tucumán, which we won by a lot, and in the first urban ring outside Buenos Aires City." (Ahem. Buenos Aires, Rosario, Córdoba? Filthy, stinking nests of neoliberal anti-Peronism!!!)
  • Interviewer: "What's your relation to the press going to be?" Cristina: "If [the press] goes back to being a means of communication and not of opposition, it's going to be perfect."
Cristina is going to keep Alberto Fernández, quite possibly the most aggressively ignorant and intolerant minister Argentina has ever had, as Chief of Cabinet cum presidential spokesman. One can only hope he'll have less to talk, if at least because Cristina (unlike her husband) can compose coherent sentences on the fly and so should be speaking by herself more often.

Most of the other ministers will remain the same, except for Infrastructure's Julio De Vido, who'll go away after the summer because Alberto Fernández has had a grudge against him for years. This is what A.F. said about Cristina's performance in Argentina's largest city.
  • Alberto Fernández: "I ask porteños to stop voting and thinking as if they were an island." (Yes, you people — you damn party poopers!)
I rest my case.

4 comments:

  1. At least you care... ;)

    I confess I don't know much about Argentina's political landscape other than the occasional election story. But what's wrong with being an exporting country? Or do you just not see it as a possibility?

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  2. Of course. Argentina already is an exporting country, but most of it is soybean. We also export other things that we should be keeping for ourselves, and almost none of it has significant added value. Cristina's dream about Argentina becoming like Germany (during her term, I presume, or in any foreseeable future) is... well, like me saying I'd like to be a tall blond Germanic god in a Mercedes. She should be speaking of more pressing matters, such as, I don't know, the many children in those poor provinces that voted for her who are chronically malnourished.

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  3. Great! So since I make a value added product, and I am trying to export more and more, I should look forward to that activity being a little easier, as in maybe I wont have to pay taxes on exports??

    I don't think so, but I can daydream now can't I?

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  4. I came across this blog entry referencing a Wall Street Journal article on the current status of the Argentine economy. Makes for interesting reading.

    http://seekerblog.com/archives/20071030/argentina-what-does-the-election-mean/

    John

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