Argentine President Defends Emergency Package: “It Only Asks the Privileged to Contribute More”

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – President Alberto Fernandez said on Tuesday, December 24th, that during Christmas celebration he would toast “for everyone”, but first to “those who are hurting, so that they will stop hurting” and said that his greatest wish is “that we will stop bleeding as a society and start moving forward hand in hand”.

The head of state celebrated the passing of the Solidarity and Productive Reactivation Law and called “for an effort” to end “the hypocritical Argentina” in which “every day bad news is made up or promoted to generate a bad feeling”.

“What I most wish is that we stop bleeding as a society and start moving forward hand in hand,” said the President in an interview with AM 750 radio, in which he said that he would make a toast so that “we will all be better off in Argentina so that each one in his or her place will find a better perspective, a better future”.

“I toast so that we have a fairer Argentina, without hungry people, with jobs for everyone, where businessmen invest and profit, where speculators lose space, for the good men and women who are the immense majority of Argentines,” said the Head of State.

On the other hand, he said that “the most complex thing” is to end with “hypocritical Argentina”, the one that “complains about the gap yet increases the gap every day” and that, he assured, “is the Argentina that says why don’t they look at things objectively and every day they make up or promote bad news to generate bad feelings”.

“This is very painful, because one makes an enormous effort to end it and there are times when one feels very lonely, one feels alone in this effort”, he said.

Along these lines, the president said that “we all have to help the most impoverished, because they are the ones who need it the most” and valued the Solidarity and Productive Reactivation Law passed by Congress, which “only asks those who have privileges”, among which he named energy companies, exporters and citizens with greater assets, “to contribute a little more to protect the neglected sectors”.

“We are pouring 100 billion pesos into the most disadvantaged sectors, the hungriest in Argentina, we are doing everything necessary so that it does not lead to a price hike, we are agreeing with trade unionists, with businessmen, with the rural areas, so that all this becomes a virtuous circle,” said the President.

However, he regretted that “it seems that I have issued an adjustment law” and noted that “all this became news stating that pensioners’ pay had been frozen,” despite the fact that in December and January there will be a bonus for the lowest pensions and in March there will be a raise for all.

“They fill us up with untrue notions that lead to great damage,” said Fernandez, who also said he was upset with “the fact that they said we tied all this up as a formality” when, in reality, they took “many of the things that the opposition told us to correct”.

“It’s very sad to see that. Let’s hope we correct it,” lamented the President.

Asked about the Chilean government’s claim, following his statements on the internal conflict in that country, he said he had spoken to Foreign Minister Felipe Solá so that he could contact his Chilean counterpart and clarify that he had not issued “any judgment on the internal situation in Chile”.

“The only thing I pointed out to a journalist who was interviewing me, was that I was very concerned with the situation in Venezuela and not with what was happening in other places in the world where, in some sense, similar to those in Venezuela,” said the President, who remarked: “I am aware that Chile is not the same as Venezuela”.

In this regard, he recalled that in 2013 he hosted human rights organizations for the detention of 800 people in Venezuela after a demonstration, which “was a national scandal in Argentina”.

“In Chile, there is a demonstration and thousands of people are arrested, rightly or wrongly, I don’t get involved in that issue, I don’t get involved, because that would be getting involved in internal situations, but the Argentinean press won’t say anything. We should measure everything according to the same standards because otherwise, it is not fair,” Fernandez urged.

And he added: “My comment was in no way an act of interference in Chile, but a complaint against the journalist who was interviewing me”.

“I love Chile, I have many Chilean friends. Despite my ideological differences, I have a very good relationship and respect for President (Sebastián) Piñera,” he said.

Source: Infobae