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Governor of the Province of Buenos Aires, Axel Kicillof.
Temes, Joaquin
The fingerprints of Buenos Aires Province Governor Axel Kicillof can be found all throughout the city. It’s been suggested that his actions are motivated by Vice-President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s desire to sway the scales away from President Alberto Fernandez’s purported moderation. The rise of Kicillof and his worldview is part of an electoral effort to enrage the opposition, particularly Buenos Aires City Mayor Horacio Rodriguez Larreta. It was also the theoretical baggage with which the government decided to address the issue of inflation amid a “tsunami” of Covid-19, which led to the imposition of a nocturnal lockdown in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area (AMBA) and the closure of schools several weeks ago, which included districts led by none other than Kicillof and Rodriguez Larreta. Instilling fear by intimidation and provocation is a method that Kicillof is all too familiar with from his time at the Economy Ministry, where he worked with Commerce Secretary Guillermo Moreno to try to control inflation by laying a pistol on the table and blaming the private sector. The findings were unappealing. President Fernandez, Education Minister Nicolas Trotta, Health Minister Carla Vizzoti, Economy Minister Martin Guzman, Security Minister Sabina Frederic, and his major adversary, Rodriguez Larreta, have all been conditioned by Kicillof.
Beginning with the government’s efforts in response to the second wave, Kicillof’s strong stance won out. In Buenos Aires, where the health system was beginning to feel the strain, the self-described Marxist was pressing for a tight shutdown to curb the exponential expansion of Covid-19 a few weeks ago. That entailed taking action before receiving actual data on the impact of Alberto’s prior set of actions, which he had taken a week previously. According to reports, the ferocity of Kicillof’s envoys marked initial meetings between the health ministers of the three major ministries — national, city, and province of Buenos Aires — who initially accused the nation’s capital of being the epicenter of cases that then spilled over to the province. They made both Vizzoti and Trotta eat their words by imposing lockdown and school closure restrictions on them. The city authority claims that they learned about the measures via television.
Elections are approaching, and everyone must participate. Fernandez attacked Rodriguez Larreta, accusing him of saying one thing in private and doing another in public. Then Kicillof took up the subject, saying in a news conference the day after the limits were announced, “Larreta cannot continue to lie to people in front of their faces.” “Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t be better for [Mauricio] Macri to come and argue with us personally,” he added. “We believed [Rodriguez] Larreta was different because he has the obligation to govern, but in the end he is exactly like [Patricia] Bullrich and Macri.” The mayor of the city, for his part, accused the president of “breaking” with a previously successful strategy: conversation. However, it was Kicillof’s inflammatory language, combined with his ministers’ voracity, that forced the situation.
Kicillof’s extended arm extends to economic policy, where he is said to be at odds with Minister Guzman. Guzman had gained Cristina’s approval after a successful government debt restructuring with private investors. He received a standing ovation from key CEOs and ranked first among Alberto’s Cabinet in approval polls. In Guzman’s opinion, traditional economic theories must be applied with an unorthodox mindset, which meant a steady drive toward deficit reduction while understanding inflation to be a multi-cause phenomenon influenced by money printing. The Kirchnerite think tank Instituto Patria vetoed his plan to eliminate energy subsidies, which would hike public utility costs for the population during an election year. Changes in tax bills and emergency payments also add to the deficit’s burden. All of these restrictions on Guzman’s economic ambitions came as the minister was on a frantic Eurotour, trying to persuade members of the G7 to support his IMF negotiations. Because of the inconsistencies between what Guzman told the Paris Club and the Kicillof-inspired ideas, Fund officials have stated that a restructuring with Argentina will not take place until the ruling Frente de Todos solves it out internally. Guzman’s strategy includes an agreement with the International Monetary Fund.
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Apart from thwarting his plan to raise prices to cut energy subsidies, Team Kicillof is also attempting to take over the fight against inflation. Price increases of 4.8 percent in March have sparked discontent within the ruling coalition, with some blaming Guzman. In May, the economy slowed to 3.3 percent, but it wasn’t enough. Private-sector speculation, according to Commerce Secretary Paula Espanol, is the reason inflation is out of control. Price freezes, increased supervision of private sector practices, and fines are the solutions. Several of the most essential products in the consumer basket through which inflation is measured have been restricted in some way since the pandemic began – and inflation continues to rise.
Espanol and her deputy, Laura Goldberg, have gone all out, according to journalist Marcelo Bonelli, after being singled out by a faction of the ruling coalition for being “soft.” They apparently start talks with businesspeople by going straight for the jugular: “What are you whining about, if you made bank with Macri,” they reportedly remarked, “keep wailing, we’ll smash you with resolutions and take over your firm.” Espanol is at the forefront of the fight against inflation, accusing the private sector of speculatively raising prices and attempting to establish comparable prices of consumer products by hand while attempting to eliminate private sector profits. It’s part of a Marxist economics philosophy that Kicillof subscribes to.
Along with the former president’s son Maximo, the governor is Cristina’s desired political successor. He was born and raised in politics by CFK, serving as her Economy Minister, then as the opposition’s primary swordsman in Congress during the Macri years, and now in the crucial Buenos Aires Province, which holds the country’s largest electoral reward. He’s rash, belligerent, and aggressive. He’s youthful and attractive, earning the moniker “Kici-love,” and has a solid reputation among hardliners. Whether he’s operating on his own initiative or is being instructed by the boss, he’s carrying out Mrs. Fernandez de Kirchner’s political agenda.
The Buenos Aires Times, Argentina’s only English-language daily, initially published this article./nRead More

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