Frente de Todos puts on show of ‘unity’ as problems mount

Key Frente de Todos leaders reunited at an event in Buenos Aires Province on Wednesday to put on a show of “unity” amid reports of coalition tensions.

President Alberto Fernández told photographers and TV cameras who were in attendance to “take this photo and never forget,” as he stood on stage flanked by politicians including Vice-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Buenos Aires Province Governor Axel Kicillof and Lower House Speaker Sergio Massa.

The Peronist leader, who strongly criticised the Supreme Court at the event in Ensenada, said the ruling coalition were striving to “put Argentina back on its feet.”

"I ask you to take this photo and never forget it. This is a photo of unity, of those of us who want to put Argentina on its feet, because they brought it to its knees,” he said, criticising the former government led by ex-president Mauricio Macri. “Here we are, those of us who are convinced of what to do.”

Lashing out at the media for speculating over internal dissent, Fernández said that “neither newspaper front pages nor judicial rulings will make us stop doing what we must for the Argentines.

Again targeting his predecessor, the president said that Macri was “a president who said that public education had to be dropped" and led a government that "mistreated teachers, closed schools, closed CONICET and the Health and Science & Technology Ministries.”

"They filled the country with misery and weakness,” he charged. “They were convinced that the market took care of everything. And we believe that the State is where there is a need, because where there is a need there is a right.”

The event was to highlight the relaunching of an uncompleted federal housing scheme, first started during the Kirchnerite administrations. A government-produced video, highlighting the funding from the government, also attacked Macri for cutting funding to the Programa Reconstruir. The government intends to build 55,000 homes across the country under the plan. 

– TIMES ​