Cristina Fernández de Kirchner blames Axel Kicillof for election loss to Javier Milei

Former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner blamed one of her disciples, Buenos Aires Province Governor Axel Kicillof, for a bruising loss to Javier Milei in midterm elections last Sunday, the clearest sign yet that the Peronist movement is plagued again by infighting. 

Kicillof, a prospective presidential candidate who was Fernández de Kirchner’s economy minister when she governed the nation, chose to separate the date of a provincial election in Buenos Aires from the national race. Back in September, Kicillof led the Peronists to victory, crushing Milei by 14 percentage points and provoking a market selloff that led to the Donald Trump administration’s financial lifeline to Milei. 

But in a letter published Friday on X, Fernández de Kirchner says the Peronist victory in the local vote allowed Milei and US President Donald Trump to reset, fearmonger and convince Argentines that an imminent collapse could occur if the libertarian lost the midterms. Milei’s party pulled off a major comeback and won Buenos Aires Province, as well as claiming victory in most others.  

Under house arrest on corruption charges since June, Fernández de Kirchner pointed out that some Peronist governors won legislative elections on Sunday. “The exception of what happened in the Province of Buenos Aires is due to a political mistake in the electoral strategy, deciding to split the elections,” Fernández de Kirchner wrote, adding that her six-year sentence was “unjust.” 

It’s not the first time the former president, who governed from 2007 to 2015, has let tensions boil over into public view. As vice-president in the last government, she routinely squabbled with former leader Alberto Fernández, and publicly blamed his economic policies for losing the 2021 midterms. She and Kicillof have also long struggled to cooperate, too, as he’s tried to emerge from her political shadow ahead of a potential presidential bid.  

In the letter, Fernández de Kirchner recalled that back in April she had opposed breaking up the votes “so as not to divide efforts between two elections separated by just 49 days.”

The September 7 provincial vote acted as a primary election, “or a run-off that allowed the anti-Peronist vote to be regrouped in the October 26 election,” Fernández de Kirchner wrote. Trump and Milei “managed to emotionally overstimulate a part of the electorate with the threat that everything was going to explode.” 

Fernández de Kirchner deployed her own fear tactics in the letter, warning of a “strong offensive” coming to try to break up Peronism. Despite slamming Kicillof, she also called for party unity. 

She used the letter to remind readers that winning a midterm doesn’t foreshadow a second presidential term for Milei. She cited the example of pro-business president Mauricio Macri, whose party won the 2017 midterms but lost in a landslide two years later. 

As for Trump, Fernández de Kirchner noted how Argentines continued to dollarise as his administration made the rare move to buy pesos, which it profited from. 

“Argentines buy dollars and the yankees buy pesos,” Fernández de Kirchner said. “What could go wrong?”