Cristina Kirchner reappears with harsh criticism of Milei and messages of unity to Peronism

The new location of the best-known statue of former President Néstor Kirchner reflects the loss of power of Kirchnerism in current Argentine politics. In the last four years, the sculpture welcomed visitors to the largest cultural center in Argentina, the colossal Kirchner Cultural Center, located a few meters from the Government headquarters. Now, with Javier Milei in power, the cultural center will change its name and the statue has been moved to a microstadium in Quilmes, on the southern outskirts of Buenos Aires. From there, his widow and former president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, spoke this Saturday, with harsh criticism of Milei and messages also directed at Peronism, mired in internal fights for leadership since the electoral defeat in November.

“I decided to come here to reflect on the anarcho-capitalist experiment and the useless sacrifice to which our people are being subjected,” said Fernández de Kirchner at the start of his first public act since Milei assumed the Presidency. “It sounds more like anarcho-colonialism to me than anarcho-capitalism,” said the Kirchnerist leader when criticizing that the economic recovery proposed by Milei places emphasis on the export of raw materials such as oil, gas, minerals and agricultural products without added value or associated research and development.

The former president spoke for just over an hour, in a speech in which she attacked the consequences of the large cut in public spending applied by Milei to clean up public accounts and lower inflation: “60% may have voted for you, but if Then, when you are the government, people starve, lose their jobs, unemployment increases, they can’t make ends meet, what’s the point?

The Kirchner leader warned that the surplus achieved in the first quarter is not sustainable because the Executive has contracted debts with the provinces, with the universities, with the electric energy regulatory body and with public works companies, among others. “It’s as if you in your house, after not paying the gas, the electricity, the bills, the lady who works and the babysitter, say: ‘I have a surplus.’ No, brother, you don’t have a surplus, look at everything you owe,” she exemplified before asking the president to take a turn.

Milei’s response

The Argentine president responded through the networks. “People are starving because for decades you defended a model that was based on spending without limits and counterfeiting money to cover the hole,” Milei tweeted. “What’s the point of what we’re doing? It serves to rebuild the country that you destroyed,” she added.

At the event, which was attended by thousands of people, Fernández de Kirchner was supported by the mayor of Quilmes, Mayra Mendoza, and was listened to in the front row by numerous representatives of Kirchnerism, including two of the figures best placed to succeed her: her son, Máximo Kirchner, supported by the La Cámpora group, and the governor of the province of Buenos Aires, Axel Kicillof, who holds the most responsible executive position today within the space. They were both, but separated, further evidence of the differences between them despite calls for unity.

“I want to ask everyone, please, let’s join forces to not turn Argentina into a wasteland of unemployed people, with scientists who are leaving,” said the former president in a message addressed to her own ranks. “When in Avellaneda I said that each comrade has a marshal’s baton in his backpack, it was not to give it to another comrade in the head, but so that he could go out into the street and explain all this,” she insisted at the end. The politician, at 71 years old, is the undisputed leader of Kirchnerism, the center-left current that has led Peronism in the last two decades. However, more and more people are asking – in public and private – to give greater prominence to the Buenos Aires governor so that he can gain influence in the political structure. Máximo Kirchner’s opposition tightens the rope.

In turn, Kirchnerism is discussed within Peronism by the other currents, such as the one headed by more conservative provincial governors and the one that unites around the former presidential candidate Sergio Massa. While Kirchnerism exercises fierce opposition to the ruling party in Congress, the latter have a much more open stance.

“Today, in Peronism there is no national leadership,” says political scientist Facundo Cruz. “The leadership that Cristina exercises finds resistance in the other provincial leaderships. She is precisely in a moment of renewal, of transition towards national leadership,” he adds.

The internal differences extend to the rest of the opposition parties. The alliance formed by the Pro with the UCR and the Civic Coalition, which brought Mauricio Macri to power in 2015, has broken down due to the division of opinions regarding Milei. Some Pro cadres have joined the far-right Government, such as Patricia Bullrich at the head of the Ministry of Security and Luis Petri at the Ministry of Defense, while in Congress there is a de facto alliance to support all official initiatives. The UCR, on the other hand, votes divided. The opposition of its most moderate sector was key to the rejection in the Senate of Milei’s megadecree of necessity and urgency. Some are even testing the creation of a new center force with accessions from other parties.

Towards the 2025 elections

Without a formal coalition, the fate of the conservative Pro seems tied to the success or failure of Milei’s far-right. Meanwhile, polls show that divisions between radicals will take their toll. Some analysts, such as Sergio Morresi, point out that it is likely that in the 2025 legislative elections both parties will suffer a bleeding of voters towards Milei. “For the first time in many years there was a line to join,” says Morresi, referring to the launch of Milei’s party, La Libertad Avanza, in Buenos Aires a few weeks ago. “There were only thousands of people, but right now, lining up to join a party is a strange thing. And a good part of the people were not young, they were people of 40, 50, 60 years old who had come from being affiliated with radicalism, with the Pro, which is now milleista, people who are migrating,” he warns.

Milei, a 53-year-old economist, became president with a party created two years earlier and without prior political experience. The popularity that he retains ―close to 50%―, after having made the largest fiscal adjustment in recent decades; contrasts with that of the main opposition figures. “Today, Cristina has more rejection than approval, the same happens to Sergio Massa and Mauricio Macri; three leaderships that were present in the last 20 years of Argentine politics,” Cruz emphasizes. The opposition, entangled in internal divisions, cannot find anyone to confront Milei for now.

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