[My conclusion for all of you with ADD ;) she will turn out to be a lot conservative then people think and though promising on the gender side (she will be "the second female to be elected head of a Latin American country in the last two years") to me this has always been over-hyped...Sure we need MUCH more women in positions of power and there is still a LONG way to go until we can say the fight against patriarchy is actually trending towards the good then the bad...BUT we have seen wtf "woman" (I use the term loosely) like former Secretary of State MADeleine albright did (BTW for those that don't know she was instrumental in calling for war/blood in Kosovo where the Klinton doctrine was "Bomb the civilians and the civilian structures until that country's military can't stand to watch it anymore"*)...
A lot of you say who the f8ck cares? Well I will (might? ;) still think you are cool but man it does matter...She will be the mfer'ing President!!!! And most importantly in a region of the world that over the past few years has FINALLY started changing for the better, people having doctors and school where there was never any hope of any in previous administrations...people being pulled out of poverty for the first time in generations...this is important...pay attention...]
I hate to say it but I think Democracy Now! might have got this wrong. I was kind of disappointed that Amy Goodman did not try to ask some more of her usually incisive and to the point questions. For instance...Is this really going to be a continuation of President Nestor Kirchner's policies?? Can this really be called part of the "Pink Tide"? What about Cristina is a repudiation of the IMF?? WTF did she have to do or say about any of this...The commentators in this interview talk about all the accomplishments of Nestor's administration but excuse me but this does not mean sh8t for what Cristina actually thinks and will do...
Though this article plays up a lot of the stereotypes and misrepresentations (i.e. comparisons to hillary and bill kkklinton, more then one encouraged by Cristina herself) I think it does point out (indirectly) a lot of potentially worrying signs. I mean if you ask me I already think Nestor was nowhere near "radical" enough but I think his heart was in the right place and he is real...His wife? Not so much...Here are some quotes from the Spiegel article..."she is also considered arrogant and moody. The porteños vilify her for her penchant for flashy jewelry and tight-fitting trousers, her cosmetic surgeries, her artificially full lips and her heavy makeup...Fernandez believes that it's time for Argentina to open itself up to the world once again. To help it reach that goal, she plans to take a page from the books of her fellow female leaders, including her role models, "Hillary Clinton and Angela Merkel." Her "role models"???? "Opening up" Argentina to me (and I am sure many others) means going back to neoliberalism...WTF?! Another thing that stuck out at me from other reading about her is that though she is known for her "dazzling" (no teleprompter, etc.) speeches she is not known as a "people person..." Whereas Nestor would be out there shaking peoples hands and clapping people on the back she cannot stand being among the throng...She has made a point of "cozying" up to Washington and other leaders and countries that have vociferously opposed the "Pink Tide" sweeping South America (to a lesser extant Latin America as a whole) of course in the interests of "diplomacy"...
All this is not looking good to me...In short I think she will turn out to be much more conservative then her husband ruthless and does not really care about the people of Argentina...Though she may outwardly continue to be friendly to Chavez, etc. I do not think she will support Chavez's many moves toward the integration (economic, political, etc.) of Latin America and most importantly she will not be intent on building up the social infrastructure of Argentina...Indeed we could see a transition to sarkozy type of right-wing/neoliberal sh8t (i.e. rampant privatizations, gutting of social safety net, etc.) of will see...
P.S. At least Chavez seems to like her so she can't be all bad?? ;)
"The Pink Tide" Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner to Become Argentina's First Elected Female President
Tuesday, October 30th, 2007
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/30/1341208
Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner will take office in December, replacing her husband Nestor Kirchner. We speak to Duke University Professor Jocelyn Olcott and Mark Weisbrot, co-director at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. [includes rush transcript]
We turn now to Argentina, where First Lady Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has become Argentina's first elected female president. Kirchner won with 45% of the vote, doubling the support of her nearest challenger. She'll take office in December, replacing her husband Nestor Kirchner.
Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is the second female to be elected head of a Latin American country in the last two years. The first, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, said: "It's not a coincidence that these two neighboring countries, with similar characteristics, have elected women to direct their destinies."
For more on Argentina's election, I'm joined by two guests. Mark Weisbrot is co-director at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, joining me on the line from Washington, D.C. And here in the firehouse studio I'm joined by Jocelyn Olcott. She is a professor of Latin American history at Duke University.
- Jocelyn Olcott, Professor of Latin American history at Duke University.
- Mark Weisbrot, Co-director at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC.
This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
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AMY GOODMAN: We turn to Argentina, where First Lady Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has become Argentina's first elected female president. Kirchner won with 45% of the vote, doubling the support of her nearest challenger. She takes office in December, replacing her husband, Nestor Kirchner.
Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is the second female to be elected head of a Latin American country in the last two years. The first, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, said, "It's not a coincidence these two neighboring countries with similar characteristics have elected women to direct their destinies."
For more on Argentina's election, I'm joined by two guests. Mark Weisbrot is on the phone from the Center for Economic Policy Research. Joining me in New York is Jocelyn Olcott. She is a professor of Latin American history at Duke University.
Let's start with you, Professor Olcott. Your response? The significance of the first woman elected president of Argentina?
JOCELYN OLCOTT: I mean, I think there's -- you know, there are several ways to read this, but certainly two of the biggest ones is it's clearly a rejection of -- the soundest rejection of the neoliberal project, right, and so it's an endorsement of continuing with Kirchner's program, which was an emphasis on social programs over, you know, the IMF project. I mean, Argentina has really aggressively rejected the IMF and structural adjustment project. And the only reason it hasn't gotten more attention is because people are so distracted by Venezuela. They haven't really focused as much on Argentina. But Argentina has been very clear on that. And so, this is really a vote to continue with that project.
AMY GOODMAN: And explain exactly what Kirchner did and then what his wife, now the elected president of Argentina, Cristina Kirchner, will do.
JOCELYN OLCOTT: I mean, it's interesting because it's part of what, you know -- she forms part of what some people are calling this "pink tide," really a turn in Latin America toward -- as part of this new left. What distinguishes this left turn from former left turns really is an emphasis on gender issues, more recognition of LGBT rights, which is something that Kirchner has been involved with.
But then, also, Kirchner, like Chavez, has put a lot of emphasis on social issues, right, and so rather than leaving everything to market forces, really, an understanding that you have to have the government involved in creating social infrastructure in order to promote development. So, I mean, I'm not sure if this is where it's going to go, but certainly the election of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is an endorsement of projects like what Chavez has done, in terms of promoting social programs. Chavez actually has a part of his constitution and legislation, is that women who are homemakers, if they demonstrate need, get paid minimum wage, right? So it's a sort of wages for housework thing.
AMY GOODMAN: Why did Nestor Kirchner not run for re-election? He was enjoying something like 60% popularity.
JOCELYN OLCOTT: Yeah. I mean, you know, there's a lot of speculation about whether or not they're trying to kind of build a dynasty, right? He could run again, if she holds office four years, he could run again and hold office four years, and then she could conceivably run again and hold office for four years. So I think particularly a lot of the opposition is saying this is part of trying to build a dynasty, you know, in the way the people have accused the Clintons or the Bushes of trying to build a dynasty. So it's -- you know, I think that's part of it.
And she's tremendously popular. She also -- I mean, I think it's worth noting, she was a senator before he was a presidential candidate. I mean, she has a career in her own right. I think that people get distracted in cases like Michelle Bachelet or Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, by the fact that they're women. And the fact is, they're very accomplished professional women before they become politicians. I mean, you know, Bachelet was an epidemiologist and has a whole career behind her, in addition to being president of Chile.
AMY GOODMAN: Mark Weisbrot, your response to the victory of the first elected woman president of Argentina?
MARK WEISBROT: Well, I think it's true she was actually -- she had a more prominent political career than her husband did, actually, before he was elected president, so the comparisons to Hillary Clinton and Evita Peron are not really appropriate.
But I think the economy was a big thing. And, you know, the government did a bunch of things that they haven't gotten, I think, enough credit for. You know, one was getting their basic macroeconomic policy right. And I think, you know, we don't often pay much attention to these things, and I think we should, because it's tremendously important. You know, the economy grew about 8.2% annually for the last five-and-a-half years, and a lot of that was just because they did the right thing in a lot of areas.
They had an exchange rate policy that was unorthodox, where the central bank targeted the exchange rate, which is something that, you know, you're not supposed to do, and the neoliberal or even, you know, any orthodox central banks in this hemisphere wouldn't do that. They're only supposed to care about inflation. So the government said, you know, we care more about growth, employment, poverty, than we do about having a little bit more than having the lowest possible inflation rate. And that's extremely important. I mean, they pulled eleven million people out of poverty in the last five-and-a-half years. They cut unemployment from 21.5% to 8.5%. And, of course, real wages increased by more than 40% during this period. So that's why you had such an easy victory for Cristina.
But also they had to confront the IMF in order to do this. The IMF was opposed to all of the major policies, including the debt default. I mean, obviously they couldn't pay their debt. But the IMF was pressuring them enormously to pay more to the foreign creditors, and they didn't do it, because they knew that that would hurt the recovery. And they were under a lot of pressure. They stood up to the IMF. They even defaulted to the IMF temporarily in September 2003, which was a very gutsy thing to do, and the IMF backed down. And nobody knew really what was going to happen at that time, because they could have been, you know, punished very severely for that. So that was a historic move, as well, because it helped break the grip of the IMF and of Washington. Not only Argentina, but Latin America, was a major stage in that process of breaking up this creditors cartel, which had determined economic policy for so long in Latin America.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Olcott, what would you like to add to that?
JOCELYN OLCOTT: I mean, I think that's exactly right, and I think that what we're seeing is really a dramatic turn, in terms of what Latin American countries are willing do to stand up to the IMF and to the Washington Consensus. I mean, this is really -- I think it's hard to overestimate how important this is.
AMY GOODMAN: Hugo Chavez agreed to refinance $5 billion of Argentina's debt?
JOCELYN OLCOTT: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: And Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner's relationship with Hugo Chavez?
JOCELYN OLCOTT: I mean, that remains to be seen. I think that she's been very savvy about being -- you know, kind of playing all sides. And so, she's, you know, been pictured with Laura Bush and all this stuff. I think she's trying not to take sides too strongly. But it's clear that there's a sort of counterweight developing in the Southern Cone that is supposed to outweigh the Washington Consensus, which is impressive.
AMY GOODMAN: We're going to leave it there. I want to thank you very much for being with us. Professor Jocelyn Olcott of Duke University teaches Latin American history there. And Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C.
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"A military alliance of 19 nations and 780 million people; with over half of the world's gross economic product, possessing two-thirds of the global military power, ganged up on a tiny nation of 10 million. For 78 days, NATO terrorized the people of Serbia, dropping 23,000 bombs and missiles on them in 36,000 sorties. Yet the Serbs remained unbowed and uncowed. This is not hearsay. I saw their defiance with my own eyes during the six days I had spent under NATO's bombardment."
(An excerpt from Bob Djurdjevic's global speaking tour, Fall/Winter 1999)
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