By Sebastián Lacunza
Editor-in-Chief
CFK owes nation a clear stance over corruption
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has denounced being the victim of a “gun-toting judge” who unscrupulously twists the letter of the law against her. It has been argued that “they went looking for the route of the K-money and — via the ‘Panama Papers’ — found the route of the M-money,” and that the Manhattan vulture funds have engaged a spurious lobby to buy off politicians, prosecutors and journalists.
All this could be true, false or debatable but for a very long time, in her new status as as an ex-president and political leader, CFK has been owing the Argentine people an explanation of an essential aspect — that her government and the preceding Néstor Kirchner presidency were plagued with an obscenely extended corruption protagonized by both those operating on their own account and those who “robbed for the crown.”
The alarm-bells started ringing many years ago and have gone unheeded. At times a rhetoric of epic dimensions was used to cloak the larceny. This cannot go on. We now see an ex-official who ran astronomic budgets for 12 years and who, feeling cornered, tried to hide bags with millions of dollars, riyals, yens and euros in a Greater Buenos Aires convent.
If Lázaro Báez was not the leading public works contractor at national level but 36th on the list (as revealed by the CFK government last year), this is far from being the most relevant fact. Báez was a bank clerk who, as from 2003, started winning multi-million tenders in Patagonia while signing huge contracts with the Kirchner family. They shared accountants and legal addresses. If Báez acted in tandem with Ángelo Calcaterra (Mauricio Macri’s cousin and rather more than that), that is also not central to CFK needing to explain the integrity of her government. But that fact does speak of a toxic element underlying politics which does not distinguish between rivals. At the very least, the ex-president should explain why she did not refrain from establishing business relations with such a prominent and inexpert state contractor.
The former vice-president Amado Boudou might have been a free operator who tried to grab a money-printing company on his own account, as well as an adventurer who forged addresses and car licences. Yet fully three years after presumed evidence of the venality of her 2011 running-mate emerged, the then president limited herself to removing him from the front row of public events. A feeble response.
Also tardy — and much more damaging — was CFK’s reaction to Ricardo Jaime, elevated by Néstor Kirchner to administer transport which he rented out to concessionaires and who even tried to rob documentation during a raid. The ex-president was known to take a dim view of Jaime’s taste in ties as too akin to the styles of Carlos Menem’s times, which did not stop her from allowing him to keep squandering transport subsidies without any control until 2009, while millions of Argentines suffered abysmal commuting conditions on suburban trains.
Should Jaime be linked more to Néstor Kirchner than to CFK? In that case, what should be said about José López, that generous soul who early yesterday morning was trying to get rid of several million dollars and euros in an impoverished neighbourhood in the western reaches of Greater Buenos Aires? López was Public Works secretary straight through from 2003 to late 2015. How many public housing units went unbuilt or were badly built due to graft?
Kirchnerism was accompanied by many artists, intellectuals and human rights militants. They affirm that they saw in Néstor and Cristina Kirchner two leaders who redistributed income on a scale rarely seen in Argentine history and who pushed forward a process of memory, truth and justice in the face of the atrocities of the military dictatorship which seemed to have been forgotten. They further affirm that they saw in the Kirchners the courage to stand up to big business without ignoring that those powerful interests had the means to inflict a thunderous revenge.
If so, that critical mass of thinking men and women, with solid track records and plenty of sensitivity, saved themselves the valuable task of being outraged by the corruption. Nor was this task performed by all the young people attracted by the Kirchners, drawn only by the epic language. In the best of cases, the sectors from whom a firm call for honesty to buttress the project they professed to defend might have been expected stayed silent. In the worst of cases they applauded the corrupt, contaminating causes and principles. Too many slogans and not enough reflection.
The cases of Jaime, Boudou, Báez and López should all undergo the corresponding judicial proceedings. The suspected larceny in no way incriminates those who supported the previous government in good faith but they still need to work on the vulnerable points of a project which claimed to be transformational. In the case of CFK, she definitely owes an explanation to the Argentine people.
@sebalacunza
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has denounced being the victim of a “gun-toting judge” who unscrupulously twists the letter of the law against her. It has been argued that “they went looking for the route of the K-money and — via the ‘Panama Papers’ — found the route of the M-money,” and that the Manhattan vulture funds have engaged a spurious lobby to buy off politicians, prosecutors and journalists.
All this could be true, false or debatable but for a very long time, in her new status as as an ex-president and political leader, CFK has been owing the Argentine people an explanation of an essential aspect — that her government and the preceding Néstor Kirchner presidency were plagued with an obscenely extended corruption protagonized by both those operating on their own account and those who “robbed for the crown.”
The alarm-bells started ringing many years ago and have gone unheeded. At times a rhetoric of epic dimensions was used to cloak the larceny. This cannot go on. We now see an ex-official who ran astronomic budgets for 12 years and who, feeling cornered, tried to hide bags with millions of dollars, riyals, yens and euros in a Greater Buenos Aires convent.
If Lázaro Báez was not the leading public works contractor at national level but 36th on the list (as revealed by the CFK government last year), this is far from being the most relevant fact. Báez was a bank clerk who, as from 2003, started winning multi-million tenders in Patagonia while signing huge contracts with the Kirchner family. They shared accountants and legal addresses. If Báez acted in tandem with Ángelo Calcaterra (Mauricio Macri’s cousin and rather more than that), that is also not central to CFK needing to explain the integrity of her government. But that fact does speak of a toxic element underlying politics which does not distinguish between rivals. At the very least, the ex-president should explain why she did not refrain from establishing business relations with such a prominent and inexpert state contractor.
The former vice-president Amado Boudou might have been a free operator who tried to grab a money-printing company on his own account, as well as an adventurer who forged addresses and car licences. Yet fully three years after presumed evidence of the venality of her 2011 running-mate emerged, the then president limited herself to removing him from the front row of public events. A feeble response.
Also tardy — and much more damaging — was CFK’s reaction to Ricardo Jaime, elevated by Néstor Kirchner to administer transport which he rented out to concessionaires and who even tried to rob documentation during a raid. The ex-president was known to take a dim view of Jaime’s taste in ties as too akin to the styles of Carlos Menem’s times, which did not stop her from allowing him to keep squandering transport subsidies without any control until 2009, while millions of Argentines suffered abysmal commuting conditions on suburban trains.
Should Jaime be linked more to Néstor Kirchner than to CFK? In that case, what should be said about José López, that generous soul who early yesterday morning was trying to get rid of several million dollars and euros in an impoverished neighbourhood in the western reaches of Greater Buenos Aires? López was Public Works secretary straight through from 2003 to late 2015. How many public housing units went unbuilt or were badly built due to graft?
Kirchnerism was accompanied by many artists, intellectuals and human rights militants. They affirm that they saw in Néstor and Cristina Kirchner two leaders who redistributed income on a scale rarely seen in Argentine history and who pushed forward a process of memory, truth and justice in the face of the atrocities of the military dictatorship which seemed to have been forgotten. They further affirm that they saw in the Kirchners the courage to stand up to big business without ignoring that those powerful interests had the means to inflict a thunderous revenge.
If so, that critical mass of thinking men and women, with solid track records and plenty of sensitivity, saved themselves the valuable task of being outraged by the corruption. Nor was this task performed by all the young people attracted by the Kirchners, drawn only by the epic language. In the best of cases, the sectors from whom a firm call for honesty to buttress the project they professed to defend might have been expected stayed silent. In the worst of cases they applauded the corrupt, contaminating causes and principles. Too many slogans and not enough reflection.
The cases of Jaime, Boudou, Báez and López should all undergo the corresponding judicial proceedings. The suspected larceny in no way incriminates those who supported the previous government in good faith but they still need to work on the vulnerable points of a project which claimed to be transformational. In the case of CFK, she definitely owes an explanation to the Argentine people.
@sebalacunza