President Macri attacks 'enemies of change' as campaign nears end

Four days before the country votes in the PASO primaries, Mauricio Macri escalated his rhetoric this afternoon, attacking "enemies of change" and saboteurs of progress in Argentina. 

Using his Twitter and Instaram accounts to ask the country to back his Juntos por el Cambio coalition, the president posted an uncharacteristically aggressive message that declared that that "the bureaucrats, the mafiosos, the corrupt, the thugs and the bribers" were holding the country back.

Though he did not identify any specific name or political grouping, many online suggested that it wasn't too difficult to identify his intended target: those associated with Alberto Fernández and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner's Frente de Todos opposition grouping.

"The bureaucrats, the mobsters, the corrupt, the thugs, the bribers, the criminals, the drug-traffickers, the fake ... they all grow their power by sabotaging progress," the president wrote.

"They are the enemies of change," he added.

The president issued the message via social networks as he travelled to Córdoba City, to lead the closing ceremony of his Juntos por el Cambio coalition in the region. The province was key to Macri's 2015 victory over Daniel Scioli.

The event will take place at 5pm at the Plaza de la Música in the capital, where he will be joined by the top-listed candidate for national deputy in Córdoba, Mario Negri, and other candiates.

Despite being governed by Peronist governor Juan Schiaretti, who has not publicly backed either of the main parties, Córdoba is considered as key territory for the government, if it is to replicate its 2015 success in October's presidential election.

On Thursday, the president will appear in Vicente López, the Greater Buenos Aires municipality that his cousin Jorge Macri leads.

- TIMES/NA