Argentina’s voters opted for a better future last week by electing Mauricio Macri to the presidency, replacing an exhausted political dynasty whose populist policies led the country to the brink of ruin with a pragmatic center-right figure aligned with pro-market
Argentina’s voters opted for a better future last week by electing Mauricio Macri to the presidency, replacing an exhausted political dynasty whose populist policies led the country to the brink of ruin with a pragmatic center-right figure aligned with pro-market forces.
After eight years with Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner at the helm, following the four-year term of her late husband, Nestor Kirchner, the country was overdue for a change toward sound economics and less political and social polarization. Such was the promise of Macri’s underdog campaign. He chose tolerance over confrontation in defeating Danilo Scioli, a former vice president under Kirchner.
Voters were plainly tired of Cristina Kirchner, who often demonized the private sector and anyone who disagreed with her government. …
On the international front, she courted Iran’s radical leaders and made common cause with leftist political figures throughout the region whose own populist schemes were as destructive as her own, if not more so, including the late Hugo Chavez and his successor as president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro.
Macri, the mayor of Buenos Aires, wisely has vowed to maintain some popular social programs introduced by the Kirchners. …
It is in the realm of foreign policy where his ideas stand in sharpest contrast to those fostered by Cristina Kirchner.
He has vowed to end her close ties with Venezuela and even said he will call for that country’s suspension from the regional economic group known as Mercosur for not complying with the bloc’s democratic principles. … Relations with the United States also are likely to improve under Macri, who will happily tone down Cristina Kirchner’s pointless anti-American rhetoric. …
One election does not a trend make. But certainly the decision by Argentina’s voters to reject the Kirchner legacy suggests the populist strain might have run its destructive course throughout Argentina and the region. It can’t happen too soon.
— Miami Herald
