The signals from Cristina Fernández de Kirchner are unequivocal: she is betting on gaining prominence as leader of the opposition to Javier Milei. The former president (2007-2015) expressed herself publicly again this Monday, through an open letter, with strong criticism of the far-right Government and with a call for the reconstruction of the Justicialist Party (PJ). The historic party of Peronism is headless and everything indicates that Kirchner will be the main candidate to lead it in the internal elections next November.
“I am willing, once again, to accept the challenge of debating in unity because if I am also clear about one thing, it is that there is no one left over here,” Kirchner says in the text that he published from his social networks. “The unity needs direction and project to build the best possible Peronism in an Argentina that has become impossible for the majority of its inhabitants,” he adds. After numerous Kirchnerist leaders nominated her last week to preside over the party, her message was interpreted in the PJ as acceptance of the candidacy.
The leadership of the party has been vacant since the resignation of former president Alberto Fernández (2019-2023), who left office in August, denounced for gender violence by his ex-partner, Fabiola Yañez. The election of new authorities is called on November 17 and the governor of La Rioja, Ricardo Quintela, has also run, until now with the support of Axel Kicillof, governor of Buenos Aires.
Kirchner has been accumulating steps in the same direction, that of gaining centrality in the political scene. In recent weeks he released critical documents about the direction of the country, crossed accusations with President Milei and the Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo; Last week it was also shown in public again, on a tour of popular neighborhoods in La Matanza, in the heart of the Buenos Aires suburbs.
The text published this Monday by the former vice president alludes to Milei as an “economist showman” who “clinged to the theory of permanent adjustment […] “It has become a show of poor quality.” “The figure of the president of the Nation shouting and affronting left and right has begun to generate a climate of generalized violence that crosses all layers of the community,” he says. “All this against a backdrop where the fierce adjustment program destabilizes a society that continues to be hit with unpayable rates and salaries that are not enough.” He defines this combination as “a kind of strange and dangerous ‘leadership’ of chaos and destruction from which nothing good can come of all Argentines.”
After criticism of the Milei Government, Kirchner calls for a generational renewal of Peronism and advocates the reconstruction of the PJ “as the instrument that must take the first step to regroup all the political and social forces behind a government program that “Give back to this Argentina immersed in the cruelty and hatred of fools, the hope and pride of being Argentine.”
Kirchner’s movements occur when Milei’s image begins to lose social support, as revealed by the latest polls. The ultra president’s economic plan reduced public spending and lowered inflation – stabilized, however, at around 4% per month – but it did so at the cost of plunging the economy into a deep recession, with a sharp increase in poverty. , which today reaches 52.9% of the population. For the moment, the dispersion of its rivals has prevented the opposition from capitalizing on latent social discontent.
In turn, Kirchner’s interest in leading the PJ will imply a dispute within Peronism with the sectors that aspired to leave Kirchnerism behind. Although the former president is the leader with the greatest weight in the party, she is also a figure that arouses strong resistance from outside the group.
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