The president of Argentina, the Peronist Alberto Fernández, announced this Friday that he will not stand for re-election in the October 22 elections. In this way, one of the main unknowns of this election year is resolved.
Fernández made the announcement indirectly, by broadcasting a long video lasting almost eight minutes with archive images, and only at the end did he confirm what most political analysts believe: his resignation from running for a second consecutive term, as he has right.
"Next December 10, 2023 is the exact day we celebrate 40 years of democracy. That day I will hand over the presidential sash to whoever has been legitimately elected at the polls by popular vote. I will work fervently to make him or her a partner of our political space", says Fernández at the end of a video where only his voice is heard.
The ruler, who assumed power at the end of 2019 after beating the then conservative president Mauricio Macri at the polls, has spent a good part of his term facing his own vice president, the former Kirchnerist president Cristina Fernández, a true power in the shadow of the Government.
The widow of President Néstor Kirchner continues to be one of the Argentine leaders with the greatest popular support, although she is also one of the politicians with the greatest rejection.
The only option that Peronism has to continue in the Casa Rosada in the current and explosive context of crisis with 104% inflation is to unite around a consensus candidate, supported by Kirchnerism and by the most social democratic and conservative sectors of the Justicialist Party.
In principle, Cristina Fernández's bet goes through the conservative Peronist Sergio Massa, who in July of last year assumed the hot potato of the Ministry of Economy.
Alberto Fernández's announcement comes in a disastrous week for the Argentine peso, which has been accelerating its depreciation since Monday, and hours before the National Council of the Justicialista Party meets this Friday to define its electoral strategy with only two months to go for the presentation of the pre-candidacies that will attend the August primaries, which are mandatory for all political parties.
