Presidential candidate Alberto Fernández, fresh from his stunning performance in the PASO primaries, said this afternoon his Frente de Todos coalition was "very happy," with their performance on Sunday, before revealing that President Mauricio Macri had not called him in the wake of the results.
In comments that raise the spectre of another difficult transition between governments in Argentina, Fernández said only Interior Minister Rogelio Frigerio from Juntos por el Cambio had called in the wake of the Peronist coalition's stunning victory.
"[Macri] has not called me in all these years. I don't think he's going to call me now," Fernández said, as he departed the Institutio Patria, after a meeting with his vice-presidential running mate Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Buenos Aires Province gubernatorial hopeful Axel Kicillof, who stormed to victory in the nation's most-populous district.
Questioned about reporters as to the feeling among his coalition, the presidential hopeful said his team "are very happy."
The result in Sunday's vote stunned financial markets, which remember Cristina Fernández de Kirchner's 2007-2015 government when she nationalised Spanish oil company Repsol's stake in local company YPF, took over the private pension system and intervened heavily in the economy with exports restrictions and currency controls.
About a third of the Argentine companies that trade in US markets lost half of their value Monday, but losses were extreme across the board with the Merval index dropping by 35 percent in mid-afternoon trading.
Speaking earlier in the day, Alberto Fernández blamed Macri for the current market unrest.
"The markets are uneasy because of the situation created by this government," Fernández told Radio 10. "All Argentines will accompany this effort but it is his responsibility."
For her part, Fernández de Kirchner remained mostly silent, though in a recorded message from the southern province of Santa Cruz, she said Sunday's results left their political grouping "happy and optimistic."
"But not only because we won an election. This is not a football game. Many Argentines understood and understand that things must change in the Republic of Argentina because as we are not living well, we are not OK," she said.
– TIMES/AP/NA
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