Buenos Aires Province Governor Axel Kicillof has issued scathing criticism of the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgieva, accusing the Bulgarian economist of publicly supporting President Javier Milei’s government.
At an event in Washington DC this week, Georgieva referenced Argentina’s new US$20-billion programme with the IMF and said the nation needed to be consistent in order to gain credibility.
"Domestically, the country is going to go to elections, as you know, in October, and it's very important that they don't derail the will for change," she said.
"So far, we don't see that. We don't see that risk materializing. But I would urge Argentina: stay the course."
Some onlookers saw those remarks as all but voicing support for Milei’s government in the upcoming October midterms.
Former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner accused Georgieva of “electoral interference.”
“She called for votes in favour of Milei’s candidates in the upcoming elections. It took Argentines too much effort to win the freedom to vote for that right to be handed over to a foreign body that has no say in the will of the Argentine people,” said the former head of state.
Kicillof added his voice to the criticism on Friday, echoing the criticism of his Partido Justicialista (PJ, Peronist) colleague.
“Kristalina Georgieva’s statements are scandalous and a grave intrusion into the democratic life of our country,” said the provincial leader.
The Buenos Aires Province governor complained that previous IMF programmes in Argentina – which has historically signed 23rd separate agreements with the multilateral lender – had led to the introduction of austerity measures that had “impoverished millions.”
Now, he alleged, the IMF “also wants to choose who should govern.”
Kicillof went on to accuse President Milei of handing over control of economic policy to the IMF.
“Javier Milei has outsourced economic policy to the Fund. He has relinquished sovereignty and handed the key decisions about our future to an international bureaucracy that does not answer to the Argentine people,” he said.
Tracing Argentina’s recent history with the IMF, Kicillof unsurprisingly praised the Kirchnerite governments of former presidents Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and criticised the right-wing governments of Milei and ex-president Mauricio Macri.
“Under Néstor and Cristina, the IMF was an unknown acronym to the younger generations. Sadly, it returned to centre stage with Macri and Milei, who prefer to obey Washington rather than listen to their own people,” claimed Kicillof.
“Now the IMF is rushing to the rescue of a new experiment in cruelty and submission. History repeats itself,” Kicillof concluded.
Despite the criticism, Georgieva has continued to show gestures of alignment with Milei’s La Libertad Avanza government.
On the sidelines of the IMF’s Spring Meetings in Washington this week, she posed for a photograph with Argentina’s Deregulation & State Transformation Minister Federico Sturzenegger, one of Milei’s closest advisers, as she received a pin badge with a chainsaw on it – the symbol used to represent the administration’s budget-slashing approach to governance.
– TIMES/NA/PERFIL
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