Argentine ex-president announces her bid for No. 2 spot
BUENOS AIRES — Argentine former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner on Saturday announced her candidacy for vice president in October’s general elections, a surprising move that now puts a more moderate challenger at the helm of the presidential ticket.
In a video posted on Twitter on Saturday, Fernandez said that Alberto Fernandez of the left-leaning Citizen’s Unity political party will run for the presidency against conservative President Mauricio Macri.
“I have asked Alberto Fernandez to head the formula that we will integrate together, he as a presidential candidate and I as a vice presidential candidate,” Fernandez said. “I am convinced that this formula that we are proposing is the one that best expresses what Argentina needs at this moment to summon the broadest social and political and economic sectors.”
Alberto Fernandez served as chief of staff from 2003 to 2007 for Fernandez’s predecessor and late husband, Nestor Kirchner. He remained in the position during a portion of Fernandez’s term as president from 2007 to 2015, but left after a steep economic crisis took hold.
In announcing her vice presidential bid, Fernandez said that she was “convinced that personal expectation or ambition must be subordinated to the general interest,” and called the country’s current economic situation “dramatic.”
“Never [have there been] so many sleeping in the street. Never so many with problems about food, about work,” she said.
Some polls have suggested Fernandez could defeat Macri in a second round of voting, but it is unclear how those prospects will change now that she has thrown her hat in the ring in a lesser capacity. Although many had assumed she would run for the top post, her decision to pursue the position of second-in-command reflects possible doubts over whether she is best positioned to challenge Macri directly in light of a series of looming corruption trials.
Argentina’s Supreme Court has said the first corruption trial against Fernandez could start as early as this week, despite a judicial order that her opponents feared could delay the trial into the presidential campaign season or beyond.
Fernandez has been accused of taking bribes in exchange for public work contracts, but denies wrongdoing and says lower courts did not allow her to present more witnesses. In separate cases, she faces several formal investigations into allegations of bribery, money laundering and criminal association during her administration and that of Kirchner.
Still, many voters are frustrated by an inflation rate that reached 47.6% last year, the highest since 1991, and a decision by Macri’s government to slash subsidies on utilities and public transportation. In April, the Argentine peso hit a record low as a result of growing distrust of the conservative president’s economic management.
Macri says he underestimated the macroeconomic imbalances inherited from his populist predecessor, the center-left Fernandez. He has also argued that correcting them became more difficult when Argentina’s worst drought in decades deprived his government of muchneeded farm export revenue.
At a political meeting on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, he appeared to respond to the announcement by saying that “going back to the past would be self-destruction.”
Fernandez, 66, was known for her interventionist and populist policies while in office.