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ARGENTINA:
Two Drivers at the Wheel?
By Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES (IPS) - Former president Nestor Kirchner, while having
no official government post, calls and receives ministers and
governors, confidently choosing staff and distributing funds for
public works projects.
Analysts say his influence has tarnished the administration of his
wife and successor, Christina Fernandez, and is having an impact on
government institutions.
Kirchner had the unique opportunity to join his wife - the first
woman president - as if elected directly by the ballot box.
Nevertheless, and despite joking that he would be "the first
gentleman", he is far from having a minor role in the current
administration.
Now, only 14 months into Fernandez's four-year term, various
observers interviewed by IPS agreed that, without a doubt, the
couple "co-governs".
Kirchner doesn't hide his role in affairs of state, unlike the low
profile maintained by his wife under the previous administration
from 2003-2007, although she was the principal senator of the
governing centre-left wing of the Peronist (Partido Justicialista)
Party.
Carla Carrizo, professor of political science at the Catholic
University of Argentina, believes that co-governing "has a negative
effect on the struggle for consolidated modern institutional
development, and equally in the battle for gender equality".
Nevertheless, she believes that the gap between the expected
leadership and the leadership actually displayed by the president
does not relate to the fact that she is a woman but to the
questionable legitimacy of her political origins. She was designated
a candidate by her husband and not selected for a distinguished
record of service.
Fernandez used to say that in being a woman "everything will cost
double" but far from fighting against prejudices, she has accepted a
co-governing role that weakens her, Carrizo observed to IPS. From
the start of her administration, her husband's influence was
visible.
In the last few weeks, the involvement of Kirchner grew even more
apparent. From his office in the presidential residence at Olivos,
in the capital Buenos Aires, he was seen receiving governors,
military officers, ministers, and other officials.
Worried over the upcoming legislative elections this year, Kirchner,
who presides over the Peronist Party, has been going over with
governors and military officials his plans for public works projects
and making funds available, analysts have affirmed. This unusual
practice was apparent for more than one beneficiary.
The most blatant case was Ricardo Quintela, officer of La Rioja,
capital of the same province, who admitted in a press conference
that "he didn't expect that Kirchner would respond so speedily to
the signing of agreements for public works projects".
The former president had promised to facilitate Quintela's request
and he fulfilled his promise. In one week, the national government
sent a check for close to 28 million dollars.
Meanwhile, Fernandez sees herself in a traditional role. "Women work
a double shift: as professionals, employees... and as housewives,"
she declared upon announcing a credit programme for the purchase of
washing machines, kitchen supplies, heaters and other appliances.
"I live with an ex-president and I am the president, but for things
that must be resolved in the domestic arena, we don't consult him,"
she remarked. "I never lose my place in the house. Also, it is I who
disciplines Florence", referring to her daughter, adding: "We women
are condemned to be the witches of the family."
For sociologist Cecilia Lipszyc, president of the Association of
University Specialists in Women's Studies, the Kirchners have long
been "a political couple" and while she is under his influence "from
the shadows", he "doesn't hide himself because he's imbued with a
patriarchal concept of power".
Lipszyc, also a member of the National institute against
Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism, maintains that Fernandez
"doesn't stand out" unlike her husband who shows off his influence
as part of his "machismo".
She recalled a comment he made in November, at a union rally. In a
joking tone, the former president confessed that every morning his
wife scolded him: "Nestor, what a vice president you gave me!"
The reference was to vice president Julio Cobos, a dissident in the
opposition Radical Civic Union, who after aligning himself with "Kirchnerism"
to be elected, has turned against some of the president's
initiatives.
"That anecdote, in which he referred to the president as 'Cristina',
de-legitimises her role, and worse, it was said in a patriarchal
tone and among a crowd of men," Lipszyc noted to IPS. Kirchner even
boasted about having been the one who decided that the presidential
formula for his wife should include Cobos, she said.
Political analyst Rosenda Fraga, of Nueva Mayoria, underscored the
paradox. "Kirchner was the president who reconstituted presidential
authority after the crisis of 2001. But now, with a secondary role
in which his wife holds the power, he is weakening the very
presidential authority that he had built."
"Neither he nor most of the party leadership realise the serious
institutional confusion that this implies," warned Fraga.
In fact, many government employees, former employees and leaders,
from the ruling party and opposition, refer to the executive branch
as "the presidential marriage". For Carrizo, "this gives a name to
an anomaly, because the position of president should be one single
person."
Carrizo sees Fernandez as "a victim of her own political tradition"
and noted the "original sin" that marred her designation as
candidate for president. In the Peronist party, she says, "there is
no neutrality" for these designations.
"What is the difference between Cristina Fernandez and other women
leaders such as (Chilean president Michelle) Bachelet, (the head of
the German government, Angela) Merkel, or the French socialist
leader Segolene Royal?" Carrizo asks rhetorically. "Why is
Cristina's leadership so disappointing?"
For Carrizo, the problems are not rooted in her "being a woman" nor
"for her daring style", as she has insisted in various talks and
interviews. "We live in a time when political women need not fight
to enter the system but are already inside and most show what they
can do," she declared.
The problem is "the lack of political parties with clear rules," she
said. "When there are no rules, what takes over is tradition, which
in the case of the Peronist party is reactionary," she warned. "More
than a matter of leadership, what we're seeing here is the structure
that sustains this tradition."
While Bachelet, Merkel or Royal, with or without a husband, follow
the rules of their particular political parties, Fernandez was
designated "by the pointing finger" of her husband as if power was a
patrimonial matter, said Carrizo. The origin of the current
political weakness of Fernandez is here - now exploited by her own
husband.
Political women as much as men "must not legitimise marital
succession", Carrizo said, which harks back to a "pre-modern,
patriarchal system", at a time when society "has already emancipated
itself from these ideas for at least two generations."
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