IPS-English ARGENTINA: ‘It Will Be Harder for Me Because I'm a Woman,' Says New President
 
Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2007 15:25:00 -0800

 
Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Dec 10   (IPS)  - In an unusual ceremony that anticipates
continuity but with nuances, Senator Cristina Fernández took office
Monday as the first elected female president of Argentina, succeeding
her husband, outgoing President Néstor Kirchner.

”Perhaps it'll be harder for me, because I'm a woman,” the new president
said at the end of her inaugural address before Congress, judges,
prominent human rights activists and presidents and other representatives
of foreign countries. ”It will always be harder for us,” she added,
to nods from her Chilean counterpart, President Michelle Bachelet.

”I am guided by the example not only of Eva, who was unable (to be
president) and perhaps deserved it more than me, but also of the mothers
and grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who with their white headscarves
went where no one else dared,” she said.

She was referring to María Eva Duarte (Evita), the wife of three
times president Juan Domingo Perón (1895-1973), who died in 1952 after
renouncing the vice-presidential candidacy because she knew she had
cancer, and to the mothers of victims of forced disappearance, who
held weekly gatherings in the Plaza de Mayo outside of the seat of
government during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship, demanding to
know the whereabouts of their children and grandchildren.

The transfer of power went swiftly. Fernández was sworn in and received
the presidential sash, along with a hug, from her husband. Both belong
to the centre-left faction in the ruling Justicialista (Peronist)
Party.

She then spoke for nearly an hour without reading from her notes,
highlighting the achievements made by the Kirchner administration
and the projects she took part in, while giving indications of the
new aspects that can be expected from her government.

The president said she would move ahead on reforms of the judicial
system and that new mechanisms, designed by the government, Congress
and the Supreme Court, will pave the way for faster progress in the
trials of the dictatorship's human rights abusers.

She vindicated free public education, pointed to the need to boost
social mobility, and observed that both she and Kirchner had received
quality public education, which she said is a pending task today.
”That is the country we must rebuild: the one in which it is possible
for the sons and daughters of working people to reach the presidency,”
she said.

With respect to international relations, Fernández celebrated Sunday's
launch of the Bank of the South ”for the economic and social transformation
of the people of Latin America, our home,” she said. The new bank
was established by the governments of Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia,
Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela.

She also expressed her interest in Venezuela continuing the process
towards becoming a full member of the Mercosur (Southern Common Market)
trade bloc, made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay,  ”to
complete the energy equation.”

She thanked Uruguayan President Tabaré Vázquez for attending the
ceremony. The normally close ties between Argentina and Uruguay are
tense because of a conflict over a paper pulp mill on the Uruguayan
side of a border river, which according to local residents in Argentina
will cause pollution.

”I want to tell you that from this president, you will not receive
one single gesture that deepens our differences,” she remarked.

But after the applause, she said the crisis between the two countries
”cannot be blamed on us,” and repeated her husband's position, which
emphasised Uruguay's alleged violation of the bilateral treaty that
governs the use of the border river, for which Argentina has brought
legal action before the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Lastly, Fernández urged Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, also present
in the audience, to allow progress towards a humanitarian exchange
of hostages held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
for imprisoned guerrillas.

”International law merits an all-out effort, so a solution does not
come too late,” she said, underscoring the presence at the inaugural
ceremony of Yolanda Pulecio, the mother of former Colombian presidential
candidate Ingrid Betancourt, the FARC's highest profile hostage, who
has been held captive in the jungles of Colombia since 2002.

In an interview with IPS, sociologist Cecilia Lipszyc, president
of the Association of University Specialists in Women's Studies, discussed
the degree of continuity and change that can be expected from the
new administration.

”The fact that there is now a woman in the presidency already implies
a positive change,” said the sociologist. ”She provides a role model.
Girls can dream of becoming president; that in itself is very important,”
said the expert.

She noted, however, that the essential aspects of the Kirchner administration
will remain unchanged. ”A second stage is coming, which is aimed at
further consolidating the same government programme, with trademarks
specific to Fernández like a stronger emphasis on science and technology,”
she said.

Aware that her triumph is based on the results achieved by her husband's
government, the new president is not aiming for a change, but for
a ”qualitative leap” in terms of economic growth with a diversified
foundation based on know-how, research and science, said Lipszyc.

Since Kirchner became president in May 2003 after Argentina's most
severe economic crisis ever, gross domestic product has grown more
than 40 percent, unemployment has fallen from 24 to eight percent,
and the poverty rate has shrunk from 51 to 29 percent.

In addition, the government is running a budget surplus, and the
bulky foreign debt was restructured through negotiations with private
creditors, while the country's debt to the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) was repaid in full.

With that idea in mind -- preserving while innovating -- Fernández
will be keeping on most of her husband's cabinet ministers, although
she created a new ministry, of Science, Technology and Productive
Innovation.

”My hope with this ministry is to be able to definitively link know-how,
research and science to Argentina's economic and productive process,”
said the new president, who added that the country will thus be able
to draw in a greater volume of investment, which will allow the high
economic growth rate to be maintained.

Fernández will also usher in changes in terms of foreign relations.
In her words, her husband ”couldn't go and travel around the world
while the country was on fire.” But in her own administration, relations
with other countries will receive a new focus.

She also mentioned the need to ”rebuild multilateralism.” 

”A unilateral world is a more insecure and unjust world,” she said,
declaring that she does not believe that human rights have to be violated
in the fight against terrorism.

”She will put a special emphasis on foreign relations because she
is interested in presenting the image of an industrial country in
need of major investments,” said Lipszyc. ”For that reason, she will
normalise the debt situation with the Paris Club, so they will unblock
financing for the economy.”

Argentina owes more than six billion dollars to the industrialised
countries that make up the Paris Club, and although the Kirchner administration
repeatedly expressed an interest in paying off the debt, both the
outgoing president and his wife refuse to submit to IMF scrutiny towards
that end.

The analyst also said that Kirchner will not simply vanish from the
scene. Despite his threats that he will keep his distance from the
new administration, Lipszyc said his influence will continue to be
felt. ”They are a political partnership; they have always governed
together,” she said. (Kirchner is a former governor of the southern
province of Santa Cruz). That active support will be welcome, she
added.



(END/IPS/LA IP/TRASP-SW/MV/07)


 
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