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Sergio Massa, a ‘super minister’ to try to put order in the Argentine economy

Sergio Massa, a 'super minister' to try to put order in the Argentine economy

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Argentine President Alberto Fernández appointed Sergio Massa as Minister of Economy on Thursday, with extended powers since he will also control Productive Development and Agriculture. Massa, former president of the Chamber of Deputies, is the leader of the centrist Peronist sector and possibly the last key to saving the fragile government coalition.

With information from our correspondents in Buenos Aires, John Louis Buchet Y Theo Conscience.

Under the combined pressure of his vice president, Cristina Kirchner, who is also the main political leader of Peronism, and of the governors of this political force, President Alberto Fernández finally granted Sergio Massa a “super ministry” of Economy this Thursday 28 of July.

Massa, until now president of the Chamber of Deputies, was the third man in the coalition that won the 2019 elections, bringing his electorate from the province of Buenos Aires closer to Fernández and Kirchner, estimated at 20% of the national total.

Today, he brings to the government his political figure and his good contacts in the United States, at a time when Argentina is faltering again.

Controlling Production and Agriculture, reduced to the rank of Secretaries of State, as well as Taxes and Customs, and with his sights set on the Treasury and the Central Bank, Massa hopes to be able to put order in an economy hit by 70% annual inflation. and that it must comply with an adjustment agreed with the International Monetary Fund.

His leadership will be important, but he will have to impose it in an unprecedented situation, with a very weakened president and a vice president whose main concern is to escape the judicial processes against him for corruption.

New protests in Buenos Aires

Thousands of Argentines returned to protest on Thursday in Buenos Aires to demand emergency social measures in the face of inflation. 10 million Argentines live in poverty. The government promised on Tuesday to grant a bonus of 11,000 pesos, that is, about 30 euros, to the beneficiaries of social programs. “It is not enough because it only covers 1.2 million people, and not the whole of the population that lives below the poverty level having a formal job,” activist Lucas Stevani, a protester in Plaza de Armas, told RFI. May of Buenos Aires.

Social and union organizations rule out a total break with the government for now, but announce that there will be a new mobilization on August 7. Oscar de Isasi, general secretary of the second union in the country, sent a warning to President Fernández at the protest: “Let him have no doubt that we are going to fill his vacancies if he goes to the adjustment side!”

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