In December of last year Argentina Cristina Fernández de Kirchner took office after being elected with a near majority. Now, just ten months later, it looks increasingly unlikely that she will manage to complete her term. Instead, her Vice President Julio Cobos may claim that honor.
Continuing conflict with the countryside has destroyed President Fernández de Kirchner’s popularity. Farmers stopped production for 128 days in protest against executive-mandated export tax increases of up to 45% on soy and grains. To mediate the dispute, the issue was turned over to Congress, where Fernández de Kirchner’s own Vice President Julio Cobos cast the tie-breaking vote that killed the tax increases.
Cobos’s insubordination cost President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner dearly. The political battle she waged against the countryside led to a drop in her approval rating from 54% in February to 27% in May, according to local polling agency Poliarquía. Cobos’s vote rendered the President’s sacrifice in popularity pointless.
Cobos, on the other hand, now commands a positive image among 67% of Argentines, according to Ibarometro. “He caught my attention by standing up to Kirchner” said Adrián, a Buenos Aires resident, echoing the popular sentiment. According to Adrián, such political independence gives the impression that Cobos is less tainted by Argentina’s endemic political corruption.
Cobos has refused to resign from his post and Fernández de Kirchner is powerless to force him since the Vice Presidency is an elected office in Argentina. Instead, the Fernández de Kirchner administration has retaliated by “stripping him of all his power, condeming him to fill his institutional function and nothing more,” according to a report by La Nación.
But ostracizing Cobos does little to help the President’s struggling administration. Unable to dialogue with his boss, Cobos has begun talking to people who will listen. While the President traveled to a UN meeting at the beginning of this month, Cobos held a series of talks with some of the President’s most vociferous opponents, including Mauricio Macri (conservative mayor of Buenos Aires) and Eduardo Buzzi (President of the Federación Agriaria and a leader of the recurrent farmers strikes). Although Cobos stated publicly on 17 October (the Peronist holiday “Día de la Lealtad”) that he did not plan on “running for anything,” most believe that he is preparing a presidential bid for the 2011 elections.
But Cobos may not have to wait that long. Only two of the four presidents elected since Argentina’s return to democracy in 1983 have completed their mandates (Carlos Menem and Néstor Kirchner). With the President facing continuing unrest in the countryside, charges of official manipulations of inflation figures, a campaign finance scandal, and looming economic disaster due to the American financial crisis within less than a year of taking office, her future looks doubtful.
Photo credits: Presidencia de la Nación Argentina (public domain).
