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UNCLAS BUENOS AIRES 002263 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL ECON KPAO AR
SUBJECT: ARGENTINA'S PRESIDENT-ELECT GIVES REVEALING INTERVIEW 
 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary and introduction:  Notoriously inaccessible to the 
media, Argentina's president-elect Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner 
(CFK) gave a lengthy interview to left-of-center, pro-government and 
often anti-U.S. daily "Pagina 12."  The broad range of topics 
included her political attitudes; domestic and economic policy 
views; and foreign policy priorities.  Frequently feisty, CFK 
questioned the relevance of some questions and the underlying 
premises of others.  Defending her husband's administration, she 
indicated there will be more continuity than change once she takes 
office.  She termed U.S.-Argentine relations "mature" in response to 
repeated probing as to whether she seeks to change the relationship. 
 She said she was optimistic about reaching a settlement with the 
Paris Club.  Describing herself and her husband as "neo-Keynesians," 
she repeatedly stated her commitment to making income distribution 
more progressive.  She shed no light on her plans for bringing 
together business and labor leaders to negotiate a "social pact." 
End Summary. 
 
Personal Traits 
--------------- 
 
¶2. (SBU) During her tightly controlled campaign for the October 28 
presidential election, CFK rarely granted any formal interviews to 
the Argentine press, presumably to limit any potential erosion of 
her frontrunner status.  The "Pagina 12" interview, published 15 
days before her inauguration, reveals a politician who is quick on 
her   feet, handling a lot of tough questions well.  She challenged 
the premise of a poorly-worded question about the lack of change in 
her Cabinet (which is roughly two-thirds the same as her husband's) 
by saying, "Pardon me, but do you think that the people voted for a 
change of government?" 
 
¶3. (SBU) CFK showed she knows her talking points and even 
acknowledged that she repeats them a lot, saying "sometimes it's 
necessary to repeat the obvious, even when it's basic."  The 
interview features many lines we've heard before, including her line 
about past methodologies to measure inflation not being the "Koran, 
Talmud, or Bible," and her husband Nestor's line about "the dead 
don't pay their debts."  She also appeared comfortable with numbers, 
tossing them around with great confidence. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Although the authors of the interview praised CFK for her 
openness and generosity, they also noted that she was a "difficult" 
interlocutor.  When asked about one controversial GOA official, she 
asked rhetorically, "You always need villains, don't you?" 
Defending her husband's economic record, she concluded that she was 
at a loss as to "what has to be done to get the media to recognize 
our accomplishments, because society already has."  There's 
anti-press vituperation throughout the interview.  She blamed press 
sensationalism for growing fears about violent crime, for example, 
implying that the fears are manufactured.  She deflected another 
question saying, "Why do I need to deny something that others have 
invented?  That does not strike me as a good methodology." 
 
Political Attitudes 
------------------- 
 
¶5. (SBU) Emphasizing the primacy of the presidency, she expressed 
her belief in "work with a team and in a team.  If there was 
something positive in Kirchner's administration, it was building a 
government without celebrities and self-promoters."  She downplayed 
the "vision thing," saying that governing is a "day-to-day" job 
where adaptability is more important than vision.  "Today you 
announce a policy, tomorrow the circumstances change and you have to 
meet again to set new goals and targets."  CFK argued for the 
institutional strength of Argentina's democracy by pointing to the 
vitality of the Senate and the independence of the judiciary.  She 
noted that the Senate, despite its poor reputation, produced several 
winners in this year's executive races, including herself and 
several governors. 
 
¶6. (SBU) The interview did not shed much light on how CFK will carry 
out her much-touted promise to bring together the private sector, 
labor and government to negotiate a "social pact" or what the pact 
would entail.  She said it would be "structural" and "define goals 
and quantifiable, verifiable targets."  She said her social pact 
would not repeat the error of the 1973 Gelbard Pact by limiting 
itself to wage and price controls but presumably include investment 
plans and productivity targets as well as infrastructure 
commitments.  Pressed to describe the process for negotiating the 
pact, CFK begged "a little patience" and said she would soon 
"articulate the roadmap." 
 
Foreign Policy:  U.S. Relations and Other 
----------------------------------------- 
 
¶7. (SBU) CFK confirmed her strong interest in foreign policy, saying 
that she "likes international relations a lot."  In response to 
several questions asking whether there will be any change in 
relations with the U.S., she showed some exasperation but finally 
said, "We have a mature relationship with the U.S."  Asked whether 
she would visit President Bush, she said, "When he called to 
congratulate me, he told me that possibly we'd be seeing each other 
after I took office.  We'll see."  She also said that "we have 
criticized the Republicans for neglecting Latin America.  That was 
questioned by us and by all the region.  The Democrats also did so, 
which leads us to hope that, if they win, they will have a 
substantially different policy."  But she then specifically added 
that she did not want to be drawn into U.S. internal politics.  (One 
note of interest:  At a high-tech awards dinner November 27, CFK 
left and then re-entered the room and walked directly to the 
Ambassador's table with photographers in train to talk to him before 
leaving again.) 
 
¶8. (SBU) She stressed a pan-Latin American message and went to great 
lengths to avoid having to choose between rival camps headed by Lula 
and Chavez.  Referring to press speculation that her November 19 
visit to Brazil presaged a tilt toward Lula and away from Chavez, 
CFK asked, "Why should closer relations with Brazil imply a 
distancing from Chavez or vice versa?"  She dodged a question about 
King Juan Carlos shutting up Chavez by saying she wished the whole 
exchange had not taken place, and she argued that economic interests 
will ultimately prevail over political posturing to ensure the 
continuation of relations between Spain and Venezuela.  (She has 
since announced that she will visit Spain in January.) 
 
¶9. (SBU) As she has done before, CFK contended that Chavez was the 
victim of a supposed double standard applied to Latins and 
Europeans.  She claimed that Putin is "getting away" with no 
international observers in the Russian election on December 2 while 
the Venezuelan referendum on the same day will be well covered by 
international observers.  She also claimed that if twin brothers had 
come to power in Latin America (as the Kaczynskis did in Poland), 
international criticism of the arrangement would have been intense. 
(Comment:  In addition to showing her reflexive Latin American 
nationalist colors, CFK also revealed with this remark that she is 
not aware of the hammering that both Putin and the Kaczynskis have 
taken in the Western press in the past few years.  End comment.) 
 
Economic 
-------- 
 
¶10. (SBU) CFK indicated that her husband had at the outset of his 
administration a "neo-Keynesian" plan to reactivate the economy with 
heavy investments in infrastructure, and she proposed to follow that 
direction but with her focus, after the emphasis on the 
reestablishment of macroeconomic stability of her husband's term, on 
micro adjustments.  This, she said, would manifest itself in more 
state planning, with region- and industry-specific plans that might 
be rolled out in January or February. 
 
¶11. (SBU) CFK ridiculed the debate over whether to combat inflation 
by decelerating economic growth, arguing that growth rates or 
unemployment rates could not be adjusted at whim like the thermostat 
on an air conditioner.  Claiming that her husband's administration 
was the first in Argentina to govern without a deficit, she asserted 
that their critics "are the ones who racked up Argentina's debt, 
driving the country to record unemployment rates and the tragedy of 
2001." 
 
¶12. (SBU) On the controversy over the manipulation by INDEC of 
inflation rates and other economic data, CFK did not give much 
ground.  Citing the flaws of previous methodologies for measuring 
prices, she argued that "economic interests" have manipulated these 
indices in the past.  She repeated that the GOA is adopting an 
"American" model for measuring inflation. 
 
¶13. (SBU) Income distribution is something of a mantra for CFK, who 
repeated throughout the interview her commitment to a more even 
distribution of income.  In listing the major issues a political 
party should address, the first she named was income distribution. 
Elsewhere, she repeatedly paired income distribution with human 
rights as her top priorities.  She claimed that Kirchner was the 
first to make a dent in the Gini coefficient (making national income 
more progressive) and that salaried workers in 2007 had 41% of the 
GDP as opposed to 34% in 2003. 
 
¶14. (SBU) On reaching a settlement with the Paris Club, CFK said she 
was "moderately optimistic" although repeating her standard line 
that European companies will bring their governments around because 
there is so much money to be made in Argentina. 
 
The First Gentleman 
------------------- 
 
¶15. (SBU) CFK noted that her husband is a "political animal," who 
has spent all his life in politics and would continue to do so upon 
leaving office December 10.  Saying she believes in strong political 
parties, CFK said Kirchner will focus on building a lasting 
political structure.  Their joint goal is to institutionalize a 
force that represents the largest sectors of Argentine society. 
After dividing Argentina's twentieth century history into three 
phases -- Radical, Peronist, and military -- she said that the 
country's dominant force in this century is still up for grabs.  Her 
husband, she said, will use his free time to seek to develop a new 
political grouping that can fill this vacuum. 
 
WAYNE