IMF Met With Advisors to Argentine Opposition Candidate Fernández

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A team from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) met on Monday, August 26th, with economic advisors to Argentina’s opposition candidate Alberto Fernández, who is leading the race for the October presidential election, according to one of his spokespersons.

The IMF team met with at least four representatives of Fernández’s “Frente de Todos” coalition, according to state news agency Telam.

Fernández, a critic of Argentina’s US$57 billion loan agreement with the IMF negotiated in 2018 by pro-reform president Mauricio Macri, promised to “reshape” the deal if elected. His economic advisors told Finance Minister Hernán Lacunza last week that Fernández will seek an “alternative economic model” to the current government’s policies.

Meetings between the IMF team and the Argentine Finance Ministry also continued on Monday, a ministry spokesman said. On Saturday, IMF officials met with Lacunza, who was appointed last week, and Guidó Sandleris, the new president of the Central Bank.

The IMF team announced its trip to Argentina on Friday, stating that it planned to discuss “recent economic and financial developments and government policy plans.”

Fernandez’s overwhelming victory in the primaries on August 11th caused the currency to plunge by nearly eighteen percent amid fears of a return to interventionist economic policies of former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who is Fernández’s vice presidential running mate.

The next planned review of the Argentine Loan Program Fund will take place on September 15th. In its previous survey of Argentina in July, the IMF cautioned that there were “high” risks to the program, with the fragility of the peso and political uncertainty potentially feeding on each other.