Argentina: Security Minister predicts "streets strewn with blood and bodies" if opposition wins elections

"Everything they (the opposition) propose could only be achieved through repression", assured the Minister of Security of Argentina, Aníbal Fernández. "If are given the possibility of governing, they are going to leave the streets strewn with blood and bodies."

The minister justified this gloomy prognosis on the pro-government channel C5N by assuring that the candidates who want to replace his government have"zero training" and a "vocation for offense and for hurting". On the other hand, he highlighted the management of the current president, Alberto Fernández, and offered to help him win the national elections next October.

He asked his party, the Peronists, for more effort, because they lack being, in his words, "carnivores", i.e. more aggressive. By contrast, the minister assured to have "all the focus in the world to win. [...] I am a full-fledged carnivore and I don't know how to live any other way than eating meat.".

Minister Fernandez has collected a long list of controversies in his public career. Other 'famous' phrases by the Argentinean are that "insecurity is a feeling" and that Argentina had less poor people than Germany. He was also criticized for making public the school attended by the daughters of a famous cartoonist who had attacked a measure taken by Kirchnerist officials.

One of the most notorious episodes is his alleged escape in the trunk of a car to evade an arrest warrant when he was mayor -an episode that the now president reminded him of in 2011, when they were at odds: "I prefer to enter through the front door and leave through the same door, and not leave hiding in a trunk." Another example of controversy surrounding him is his alleged link to drug trafficking.

The insecurity of the Minister of Security

The words of the Minister of Security of the Nation came hours after he held a meeting with his counterpart in the Province of Buenos Aires, the most populous province in the country. If the former predicts streets full of blood, the latter was beaten in the street earlier this month.

That provincial official, Sergio Berni, was surrounded by bus drivers protesting the murder of a driver in the municipality of La Matanza, Buenos Aires. Between shouts of "liar" and "son of a bitch" some demonstrators punched Berni, who at times seemed on the verge of losing consciousness.

The episode spurred the discussion on the climate of insecurity in the country. It is the second most worrying issue for Argentines, surpassed only by inflation. Corruption completes the podium, according to a survey by Universidad San Andrés. The same survey also shows that 89% consider the current government's security policy unsatisfactory.