Former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner described President Javier Milei’s economic policies as “an anarcho-capitalist experiment” and questioned “the useless sacrifice to which the Argentinian people are being subjected”.
“Even if you get elected by 60% of the votes, if people starve and can’t make ends meet under your administration, what good is it?”, the former president said during a rally in Quilmes (province of Buenos Aires), where she inaugurated a stadium named after her late husband and former president Néstor Kirchner, together with Quilmes mayor Mayra Mendoza.
Fernández de Kirchner explained that she accepted the invitation after listening to President Milei’s recent speech in which he spoke of the “historic feat” of increasing public surplus by 0,2 points during the first quarter of the year.
The former president said that “if you don’t pay for public works, or for what you owe provinces and universities, then you don’t have any surplus. It’s a lie”.
“Look at all that you owe. Where is the surplus?” she asked and reminded the audience that “we had six years of surplus, under Néstor’s and my administrations. Are we national heroes, then? No, we are men and women with a sense of responsibility, who face history with courage and clear ideas”.
Also, Cristina said that, as opposition of the current La Libertad Avanza administration, “we recognize President Milei’s legitimacy of origin, born in the force of the popular vote, but legitimacy of origin needs to become legitimacy of administration”.
She remembered that Nestor Kirchner was elected president in 2003 by 22% of the votes and had no legitimacy then, but “we got it during the administration, by defending the interests of society and doing what we had to do”.
In her speech, Cristina Fernández said that Javier Milei’s government proposes “an extractive economy, in which our natural resources are taken away, without any added value or industry” and added that the current economic policies “seem to be anarcho-colonialism, rather than anarcho-capitalism, and we don’t like that”, as the crowd cheered on. She also stated that “nobody wants things to go wrong for the government, because that would mean that things go wrong for all Argentinians”.
Yet, she warned Javier Milei that “if he intends to turn this country into a country without any industry, without a middle class, than I’ll become a light-blue-and-white avatar, like our flag, to defend our homeland, because we won’t become a colony again. No, sir”, she said as the crowd chanted “Homeland, yes! Colony, no!”
“Why do they always say the State needs to be reduced, while they make four or five companies larger, to make more money?”, she added.
Without any personal references, Cristina criticized the conflict of interests between businessmen and officials of the current administration.
“When we have people on both sides of the counter, how can that go right? Businessmen are not bad people, they just care about profitability. Nobody expects social awareness from them: they are businessmen”, she said and added: “It is the State that needs to take on that role in order to establish harmonious bonds in society”.
She also said that Argentinians should be “proud of our businessmen”, naming Mercado Libre CEO Marcos Galperín specifically, but wondered “Is it normal that the richest man in the country gets tax exemptions?”.
She also mentioned the problem with the state universities’ budgets and underlined that last Tuesday’s demonstration had a “cross-party” turnout. In that sense, she emphasized that “there wouldn’t be as many university graduates if Néstor and I had not created as many universities as we did” during their administrations.
Near the end of her one-hour-long speech, the former president addressed leaders of her party and said that some discussions should be had, keeing in mind “that people elected us in 2019 because they remembered the way they lived until 2015”.
“Let’s join forces so they don’t turn our country into a wasteland of unemployment and exiled scientists. Please, let’s not let scientists leave the country again”, she insisted.
“Let’s discuss what kind of country we want. We have that responsibility as opposition, acknowledging the things we did, admitting the things we didn’t, and looking ahead”, the former president said.
Fernández de Kirchner was welcomed by mayor Mayra Mendoza at 4:30 PM at Quilmes’ sports center. Before her speech, the former president paid tribute to former president Néstor Kirchner, unveiling, together with mayor Mendoza, a statue of him located at the newly-inaugurated stadium.