Kirchner Sabotaging Transition?

from The Telegraph

With only three days left in office, many heads of state would be winding down and savouring their final hours of presidential pampering.

Not Cristina Kirchner. The Argentine president, who on Thursday hands over to her arch rival, businessman Mauricio Macri, has spent the dying days of her presidency in a whirlwind of activity.

"It seems the idea is to fill the transition process with obstacles and create as many problems as possible for the new government," said Mr Macri, whose election on November 22 marked a failure for Mrs Kirchner to install her chosen socialist successor, Daniel Scioli.

Mr Macri, mayor of Buenos Aires and former president of Boca Juniors football club, complains that she is obstructing access to public accounts and hampering a smooth transition.

“This is a sad choice that the president has made. Everything she does that she thinks will hurt our government will in reality hurt all Argentines,” he added.

She has approved the delegation of billions of dollars of spending to provincial governors. With ten days to go until the December 10 handover, she changed the budget for the next year, with increased spending on Congress, the judiciary, the security forces and her prized social plans including Football For All – a programme which shows free football matches, alongside political messages.

The decree, 2585, signalled a surge in spending which she said was necessary for the cabinet to “guarantee the fulfilling of its objectives while in power".

She has appointed a slew of new ambassadors – to Cuba, Australia and the UAE – which, as political appointees, can be replaced by Mr Macri, but present a headache.

Alejandro Vanoli, the combative president of the central bank, was expected to resign – as many of Mrs Kirchner’s appointees have done – but is clinging on.

And even the handover ceremony has been contentious, with Mrs Kirchner planning on holding a final “farewell” rally on Wednesday night, followed by a handover in Congress on Thursday.

Mr Macri wants the handover to be at the Casa Rosada presidential palace.

The row has seen the revered sixth-generation silversmith Juan Carlos Pallarols caught up in the melee, after an assistant was threatened with detention if he did not deliver the presidential baton to the ceremonial authorities immediately.

He later received a formal apology from the authorities responsible for the inauguration.

Mrs Kirchner has hit back, accusing Mr Macri on Sunday of “shouting” at her on the phone.

“I must confess that I was surprised by the shouting of the president-elect,” she said, in a lengthy letter published on her website on Sunday.

“I had to remind him at one point that beyond our statures, he was a man and I a woman and he had no right to treat me in this way.”

Her role after the election is unclear. She has not, unlike many previous presidents, sought immunity through a seat in the Senate. When asked on election day what her plans were, she replied: “I will carry on the fight.”