Alberto Fernández
Alberto Ángel Fernández is an Argentine politician, lawyer, and academic who served as President of Argentina from 2019 to 2023. He was also the Chief of the Cabinet of Ministers from 2003 to 2008. His tenure as Cabinet Chief remains the longest since the post was created in 1994.
Born in Buenos Aires, Fernández attended the University of Buenos Aires, where he earned his law degree at age 24, and later became a professor of criminal law. Ideologically a Peronist, entered public service as an adviser to Deliberative Council of Buenos Aires and the Argentine Chamber of Deputies. In 2003, he was appointed Chief of the Cabinet of Ministers, serving during the entirety of the presidency of Néstor Kirchner, and the early months of the presidency of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
A member of the Justicialist Party, a Peronist party, Fernández was the party's candidate for the 2019 presidential election under the leftist Frente de Todos alliance and defeated incumbent president Mauricio Macri with 48% of the vote. His political position has been described as centrist. The first two years of his presidency was limited by the COVID-19 pandemic in Argentina, during which he imposed strict lockdown measures to suppress the spread of the disease, and a debt crisis inherited from his predecessor. While the economy recovered in 2021–22, inflation rose to 100%. His approval ratings were constantly low throughout his presidency, only in few certain occasions over 50% approval rate, with disapproval ratings from 60% to 80%.
According to British newspaper The Economist, Fernández was considered "a president without a plan", and his presidency to be a "weak administration". In April 2023, Fernández announced that he decided to not seek reelection to the presidency in the 2023 presidential election. He was succeeded by Javier Milei on 10 December 2023. Leaving office with a disapproval rate of around 80%, Fernández's presidency is widely regarded by critics and historians as one of the worst in Argentine history.
Early life and career
Fernández was born in Buenos Aires, the son of Celia Pérez and her first husband. Separated from the latter, Celia married Judge Carlos Pelagio Galíndez. Fernández, who barely knew his biological father, considers Pelagio to be his father.Fernández attended the University of Buenos Aires Faculty of Law. He graduated at the age of 24, and later became a professor of criminal law. He entered public service as an adviser to Deliberative Council of Buenos Aires and the Argentine Chamber of Deputies. He became deputy director of Legal Affairs of the Economy Ministry, and in this capacity served as chief Argentine negotiator at the GATT Uruguay Round. Nominated by newly elected President Carlos Menem to serve as Superintendent of Insurance, Fernández served as President of the Latin American Insurance Managers' Association from 1989 to 1992, and co-founded the Insurance Managers International Association. He also served as adviser to Mercosur and ALADI on insurance law, and was involved in insurance and health services companies in the private sector. Fernández was named one of the Ten Outstanding Young People of Argentina in 1992, and was awarded the Millennium Award as one of the nation's Businessmen of the Century. During this time he became politically close to former Buenos Aires Province Governor Eduardo Duhalde.
File:Kirchner Taiana Fernandez.jpg|thumb|left|230px|Fernández with President Néstor Kirchner and Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana in 2007
He was elected on 7 June 2000, to the Buenos Aires City Legislature on the conservative Action for the Republic ticket led by former Economy Minister Domingo Cavallo.
Chief of the Cabinet (2003–2008)
He gave up his seat when he was appointed Chief of the Cabinet of Ministers by President Néstor Kirchner upon taking office on 25 May 2003, and retained the same post under Kirchner's wife and successor, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, upon her election in 2007.A new system of variable taxes on agricultural exports led to the 2008 Argentine government conflict with the agricultural sector, during which Fernández acted as the government's chief negotiator. The negotiations failed, however, and following Vice President Julio Cobos' surprise, tie-breaking vote against the bill in the Senate, Fernández resigned on 23 July 2008.
Pre-presidency
He was named head of the City of Buenos Aires chapter of the Justicialist Party, but minimized his involvement in Front for Victory campaigns for Congress in 2009. Fernández actively considered seeking the Justicialist Party presidential nomination ahead of the 2011 general elections. He ultimately endorsed President Cristina Kirchner for re-election, however. He was campaign manager of the presidential candidacy of Sergio Massa in 2015.Presidential elections
Presidential campaign
On 18 May 2019, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner announced that Fernández would be a candidate for president, and that she would run for vice president alongside him, hosting his first campaign rally with Santa Cruz Governor Alicia Kirchner, sister-in-law of the former Kirchner.About a month later, seeking to broaden his appeal to moderates, Fernández struck a deal with Sergio Massa to form an alliance called Frente de Todos, wherein Massa would be offered a role within a potential Fernández administration, or be given a key role within the Chamber of Deputies in exchange for dropping out of the presidential race and offering his support. Fernández also earned the endorsement of the General Confederation of Labor, receiving their support in exchange for promising that he will boost the economy, and that there will be no labor reform.
General elections
On 11 August 2019, Fernández won first place in the 2019 primary elections, earning 47.7% of the vote, compared to incumbent President Mauricio Macri's 31.8%. Fernández thereafter held a press conference where he said he called Macri to say that he would help Macri complete his term and "bring calm to society and markets", and that his economic proposals do not run the risk of defaulting on the national debt.In the 27 October general election, Fernández won the presidency by attaining 48.1% of the vote to Macri's 40.4%, exceeding the threshold required to win without the need for a ballotage. In Argentina, a presidential candidate can win outright by either garnering at least 45 percent of the vote, or winning 40 percent of the vote while being 10 points ahead of his or her nearest challenger. He owed his victory mainly to carrying Buenos Aires Province by over 1.6 million votes, accounting for almost all of his nationwide margin of 2.1 million votes. By comparison, Daniel Scioli only carried the country's largest province by 219,000 votes four years earlier.
Presidency (2019–2023)
Inauguration
Fernández was sworn in on 10 December 2019.Economic policy
On 14 December, the government established by decree the emergency in occupational matters and double compensation for dismissal without just cause for six months.His first legislative initiative, the Social Solidarity and Productive Recovery Bill, was passed by Congress on 23 December. The bill includes tax hikes on foreign currency purchases, agricultural exports, wealth, and car sales - as well as tax incentives for production. Amid the worst recession in nearly two decades, it provided a 180-day freeze on utility rates, bonuses for the nation's retirees and Universal Allocation per Child beneficiaries, and food cards to two million of Argentina's poorest families. It also gave the president additional powers to renegotiate debt terms – with Argentina seeking to restructure its US$100 billion debt with private bondholders and US$45 billion borrowed by Macri from the International Monetary Fund. As the capital controls stayed in effect and with no prospect of being removed, the country was degraded from emerging market to standalone market by MSCI.
Organizations of the agricultural sector, including Sociedad Rural Argentina, CONINAGRO, Argentine Agrarian Federation and Argentine Rural Confederations, rejected the increase in taxes on agricultural exports. Despite these conflicts, Fernández announced the three-point increase in withholding tax on soybeans on the day of the opening of the regular sessions, on 1 March and generated major problems in the relationship between the government and the agricultural sector.
Argentina defaulted again on 22 May 2020 by failing to pay $500 million on its due date to its creditors. Negotiations for the restructuring of $66 billion of its debt continue. The International Monetary Fund reported that the COVID-19 crisis would plunge Argentina's GDP by 9.9 percent, after the country's economy contracted by 5.4 percent in first quarter of 2020, with unemployment rising over 10.4 percent in the first three months of the year, before the lockdown started. On 4 August, Fernández reached an accord with the biggest creditors on terms for a restructuring of $65bn in foreign bonds, after a breakthrough in talks that had at times looked close to collapse since the country's ninth debt default in May. On 22 September, as part of the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, official reports showed a 19% year-on-year drop in the GDP for the second quarter of 2020, the biggest drop in the country's history. Investment went down 38% from the previous year. The poverty rate rose to 42% in the second half of 2020, the highest since 2004. Child poverty reached the 57.7% of minors of 14 years.
Social policy
On 31 December 2019, Fernández announced that he would send a bill in 2020 to discuss the legalization of abortion, ratified his support for its approval, and expressed his wish for "sensible debate". However, in June 2020, he stated that he was "attending to more urgent matters", and that "he'll send the bill at some point". In November 2020, Fernández's legal secretary, Vilma Ibarra, confirmed that the government would be sending a new bill for the legalization of abortion to the National Congress that month. The Executive sent the bill, alongside another bill oriented towards women's health care, on 17 November 2020. The bill was passed by the Senate, legalizing abortion in Argentina, on 30 December 2020.On 1 March, he also announced a restructuring of the Federal Intelligence Agency, including the publications of its accounts - which had been made secret by Macri in a 2016 decree. The AFI had been criticized for targeting public figures for political purposes.
On 17 August, protests took place in many cities across Argentina against measures taken by Fernández, primarily the Justice Reform Bill his government had sent to the Congress, but also, among other causes: for the "defense of institutions" and "separation of powers", against the government's quarantine measures, the perceived lack of liberty and the increase in crime, and a raise on state pensions.
On 4 September 2020, Fernández signed a Necessity and Urgency Decree establishing a 1% employment quota for trans and travesti people in the national public sector. The measure had been previously debated in the Chamber of Deputies as various prospective bills. The decree mandates that at any given point, at least 1% of all public sector workers in the national government must be transgender, as understood in the 2012 Gender Identity Law.
On 20 July 2021, Fernández signed another Necessity and Urgency Decree mandating the National Registry of Persons to allow a third gender option on all national identity cards and passports, marked as an "X". The measure applies to non-citizen permanent residents who possess Argentine identity cards as well. In compliance with the 2012 Gender Identity Law, this made Argentina one of the few countries in the world to legally recognize non-binary gender on all official documentation.
On 12 November 2020 Fernández signed a decree legalizing the self-cultivation and regulating the sales and subsidized access of medical cannabis, expanding upon a 2017 bill that legalized the use and research of the plant and its derivatives. In June 2019, during his presidential campaign, he had signaled his intention to legalize marijuana for recreational purposes, but not other types of drugs.