Argentina: 'General' Fernández waves the white flag

Argentine President Alberto Fernandez has decided not to run in the October primary elections. No, he will not seek reelection as he had said. The general has surrendered to inflation after declaring war on it just over a year ago. On that occasion, he stated: "I promise you that another war will begin, the war against inflation in Argentina. We are going to put an end to speculators and we are going to put things in order." However, the military strategy has failed. Was it the general's fault? Was it Lieutenant General Cristina Kirchner's responsibility? What could have gone wrong?

This long-standing enemy -inflation- has not been intimidated by the general's speeches, even less so when the weapons to fight it were already used and rusty and had never worked. After all, the only armament the general had was a money printing machine to finance the enormous populist public spending, accompanied, of course, by stifling regulations and taxes.

The soldiers chosen may not have been the best: groups of activists and union thugs to control prices in supermarkets. Did the general really expect to defeat ferocious inflation with this kind of troops? And what about the military officers in charge, such as the Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa? A person whose only virtue consists of betrayal and is used to change sides in the middle of a war, to the point that he decided to work with those Kirchnerists he had promised to "sweep out" of public office because he considered them parasites, or send them to prison for being corrupt.

Clearly, the strategy and the soldiers chosen were not the best. However, the lieutenant general Cristina Kirchner, the one who he is really in charge despite his vice-presidential disguisehas always been the one that has caused the most suffering to the general, whose discourse has changed significantly since he was chosen by his enemy, Cristina, to become president, since the lieutenant general understood that with the votes of his hard core it was not enough to come to power again in 2019. Nevertheless, the friendly fire that General Alberto suffered from his vice and the soldiers who answer to her has been (and continues to be) harsh and relentless.

The worst part of the strategy in the war against inflation may have been the choice of enemies: the ones that the general called "speculators", which are not no more and no less than large, medium or small entrepreneurs that are forced to increase prices in order to survive. The surrender comes late, as the price of the dollar has skyrocketed (reaching 442 pesos at the time of writing), and the increase has accelerated recently. Well, actually, it is the peso that has been significantly devalued, of course. Moreover, year-on-year inflation exceeded three figures (104.3% in March). All this has, of course, led to an increase in the already very high poverty rates, a destroyed middle class and a massive flight from the country of people who are looking for progress and understand that, as they say in Argentina, "the only exit is Ezeiza"(referring to the location of the Ministro Pistarini International Airport).

The story of the military commandThe war, plagued by cheap talk about foolish strategies, weaponry used and rusted centuries ago, self-praise from leaders as narcissistic as they are perverse, and soldiers as functional as they are clumsy and ignorant, has been unable to defuse the reality bomb, from which this time they could not escape and which exploded in their faces..