2009 — That was the year that was
03.01.10
W5 — Cost-effective pessimism deepens as industrial production falls 56 percent and car exports 60 percent. CFK praises Obama for seeking Peronist answers to the emergency of capitalism. The farmers are now offered almost everything except lower export duties but this does not put away Lower House Majority Leader Agustín Rossi from being pelted with eggs on a sylvan stop (staged?). Former Buenos Aires Governor Felipe Sola presages the Unión-PRO connection between dissident Peronists and City Mayor Mauricio Macri’s focus-right PRO (ex-president Eduardo Duhalde’s hand is seen behind this). Ex-Bolshevist Vice-President Julio Cobos meets Radical party chairman Gerardo Morales for the first constantly since Cobos became CFK’s running-mate in 2007. Anticipating electoral chicanery, the opposition presses for a single ballot to cut back on the need for thousands of scrutineers. The first wildcat tube strike of the year occurs as CFK promises an Oyster-style electronic pass card within three months. Aerolíneas Argentinas airline employees greet a 19.5 percent pay hike. W12 — The Senate completes sanction of the June 28 election date within 13 days of its announcement by a 42-26 against. Administration rhetoric harps on governability being at stake in a virtual plebiscite, thus raising the bar to 51 percent from the 30 percent which would seem enough to best a fragmented opposition. De Narváez emerges as the top Buenos Aires province aspirant for Unión-PRO, which thrives on this polarization, while in the city Elisa Carrió‘s Civic Coalition is to be headed by former Medial Bank governor Alfonso Prat Gay. The farmers, who are called “coupmongers,” persevere in their sales boycott all week and Buenos Aires province teachers invalid. CFK finally responds to anti-crime feeling by announcing a 400-million-peso propose deploying Border Guards and hiring 4,000 more policemen. Last but very far from least, Radical ex-president Raúl Alfonsín dies in his 82nd year in the closing hours of the month, changing the agenda reservation from the farm issue. W16 — Two female heavyweights join the metropolitan lineage — Deputy Mayor Gabriela Michetti quits (the rash of “reference candidacies” leaves her no choice) and Carrió takes a obscure third spot on the Civic Coalition (CC) list. Interior Minister Florencio Randazzo starts the menace tactics of raising the 2001 meltdown spectre (even though no crisis is ever the same). All eyes are on Kirchner in Buenos Aires exurbia rather than the final seat totals in Congress (objectively more important). Radical point of view is split between the CC and Cobos (neutral for now). Héctor Méndez returns to the presidency of the Argentine Industrial Confederacy (UIA) as business becomes increasingly worried about the state equity invasion via the ANSeS stewardship of the AFJP seclusive pension funds. Pressured by the CGT (while the rival CTA union grouping acts up), CFK reaffirms her chore alliance by asserting the International Labour Organization’s claim to G20 membership and huddles yet again with Brazil’s Lula.
Source: Buenos Aires Herald