EDITORIAL Credibility gap the widest of all 13-08-2022 06:52 Massa is widely assumed to model his ambitions on Brazil’s Fernando Henrique Cardoso but even subordinating all else to that goal does not automatically make his policies more predictable.
EDITORIAL Blind eyes of a storm 01-08-2022 14:40 At least two natural phenomena – sandstorms taking the form of a vertical twister spiral and the eye of the storm, that island of calm in the midst of a hurricane or typhoon – unfold atypically in a relatively small area and perhaps Argentina today has something of both.
EDITORIAL Leaps in the dark 09-07-2022 06:00 Always subordinating economic policy to electoral strategy in classic populist style, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner seems convinced that a 2023 election irretrievably lost with Martín Guzmán’s IMF orientation can be turned around with an extreme transformation.
EDITORIAL Muddling and meddling in the middle of the year 02-07-2022 07:00 If 1974 saw the death of the founder of the Peronist movement 48 years ago yesterday, the current head is looking hardly more alive politically – and far more nominal in his authority.
EDITORIAL Is Colombia’s run-off Argentina’s run-up? 25-06-2022 00:01 We could do worse than take a closer look at Colombia and at last week’s presidential run-off in particular as the possible shape of things to come here.
EDITORIAL A motley crew – in the air and on the ground 18-06-2022 07:53 A Venezuelan cargo plane with mysterious Iranians is a random factor entering out of the blue for a government sinking ever deeper into the red, concealing as much as reflecting more substantial issues.
EDITORIAL Never a peak period for summits 09-06-2022 23:10 While it is rarely a good idea to draw conclusions on anything still in progress, the Ninth Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles looked to have been strangled at birth.
EDITORIAL Where angels fear to tread 03-06-2022 11:19 President Alberto Fernández seems to be doing his best to inject some Hollywood drama into what should be regional routine.
EDITORIAL Back(s) to the future in the present (very) tense 28-05-2022 01:41 Instead of seeking any consensus to confront this impending national emergency, the political spectrum is increasingly fragmented at various levels.
EDITORIAL Could opium be the opium of the masses? 21-05-2022 06:00 In order to overcome the widespread perception that they are hopelessly abstract, institutions need to establish a connection with current problems and everyday life to become established again.
EDITORIAL April showers without May flowers 14-05-2022 00:01 Far from leaving his problems at home, while in Europe President Fernández took them on with a vigour almost never seen when staring him in the face at home.
EDITORIAL Are two heads always better than one? 07-05-2022 00:23 Blame lies not only with a self-destructive government whose two wings are more interested in flapping against each other than in taking flight but also with a distinct lack of clear, constructive and convincing alternatives from any other political sector.
EDITORIAL Coins in the air 30-04-2022 01:09 There was a time when virtually everybody except the economists defined the economy by its bottom line. Things are no longer so binary or linear – least of all when trying to size up the Argentine economy today.
EDITORIAL Divide and rule (but not rule of law) 23-04-2022 00:01 A separation of powers still nominally exists but all three branches of government now respond to partisan battle lines.
EDITORIAL Anything but a holy week 16-04-2022 00:01 Inflation at this level traps the government in the austerity it abhors since prices and government revenues both rising in real time leave wages and pensions trailing, thus turning the political debate into an uphill battle.
EDITORIAL Picky with the pickets 09-04-2022 00:01 Civic patience in Argentina is being increasingly strained by escalating social protests.
EDITORIAL Forty years after 02-04-2022 00:15 If the war beginning 40 years ago was a tragedy of human weaknesses masquerading as a show of force, the best thing we can do today is to highlight the positive side of being human.
EDITORIAL Remembering back to the future 25-03-2022 20:55 All the political jockeying, shows of force and crisis scenarios should not distract us from what Memory Day is all about.
EDITORIAL Warfare replacing lawfare 18-03-2022 21:37 Not only is a “war” against inflation a tasteless choice of words in the current global context but also offers little promise of success.
EDITORIAL A changing world, near and far 11-03-2022 14:37 Gabriel Boric’s inauguration takes Chile into uncharted territory, but the world as a whole may well be taking an even greater leap into the dark.
EDITORIAL Look back in anger 04-03-2022 21:13 The main reproach for Tuesday’s words to open Congress is not the almost 100 minutes of soft soap, clichés and wishful thinking – the reproach is rather that the softest soap was reserved for the situation in Ukraine.
EDITORIAL Steppes towards war 25-02-2022 22:48 With Russian tanks reportedly closing in on Kyiv, the international crisis is real enough and deserves to top Argentina’s generally parochial agenda.
EDITORIAL Children are the future 18-02-2022 22:22 Education is the key issue for Argentina, in any medium or long term.
EDITORIAL Of silk roads and sow’s ears 12-02-2022 09:51 The main lesson from the president’s Sino-Russian swing should be the need to separate international economic relations from domestic politics and even geopolitics in a multilateral world.
EDITORIAL Into More Frustration 04-02-2022 23:13 The distinction between an “agreement” and an “understanding” might seem like semantic quibbling but there is a world of difference. Máximo Kirchner and other critics within and beyond the government might be entitled to a certain scepticism as to the rosy picture painted by President Fernández a week ago.
EDITORIAL Slow boat to China… and everything else 28-01-2022 21:18 A slow boat to China or no boat at all? Given the presidential talent for procrastination on display with the IMF agreement, we will just have to wait and see.
EDITORIAL Into More Friction 21-01-2022 22:03 The government keeps looking for back doors to an agreement with the IMF, while the veep constantly writes oblique letters conditioning the president – why cannot the government stick to negotiating directly with the IMF while the president and vice-president simply speak to each other?
EDITORIAL Power politics 15-01-2022 02:00 If the government cannot scale back the subsidy mountain for billing which is a virtual invitation to squander energy, an IMF agreement will be an even longer shot than it seems now – a deadlock where both the problem and its solution is increasingly seen as “geopolitical.”
EDITORIAL Incessantly Muddling Factors 07-01-2022 22:59 The Frente de Todos administration seems far more bent on delaying than accelerating a debt agreement with the International Monetary Fund.
EDITORIAL So long to 2021... and hi to 2022 31-12-2021 13:03 One major difference between 2021 and 2022 – at least there are no elections this year, thus leaving the government less conditioned when defining its agenda but also the citizenry freer to make their own New Year’s resolutions.
EDITORIAL When budget rhymes with ‘fudge it’ 18-12-2021 07:32 In Argentina the budget continues to be something of a bad joke.
THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM The great dichotomy 10-12-2021 23:33 Journalism is still in the middle of its transformation into a new discipline, and media companies continue to face a critical situation, particularly in Argentina where economic crisis is the norm. by Agustino Fontevecchia
EDITORIAL Human rights yesterday, today and tomorrow 10-12-2021 23:23 In Argentina, human rights have become another victim of political polarisation.
EDITORIAL The lady’s not for burning 03-12-2021 23:12 Vice-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner makes a blazing return to centre stage after a long pre-electoral and post-electoral silence.
EDITORIAL Any which way but loose 26-11-2021 22:31 With the withdrawal of his vice-presidential sponsor, President Fernández has more freedom of action than at any point since his record popularity in the first stages of quarantine. He needs to make the most of it.
EDITORIAL Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow 20-11-2021 12:07 It would do the government a power of good to admit their defeat and read its message so that they can start addressing its causes.
EDITORIAL The tomorrow after tomorrow 13-11-2021 00:01 Who wins and who loses tomorrow is far less important than what comes next for the country.
EDITORIAL Foreign policy in debt 05-11-2021 18:13 The current administration is a fragmented coalition projecting all its internal splits into external policy, with the result that its diplomatic discourse not only continues to be isolationist, self-indulgent and anachronistic but also ambiguous, inconsistent and unpredictable.
EDITORIAL Is all the world a stage or something more? 29-10-2021 21:51 In general, green thinking in Argentine politics spells greenbacks rather than environmental conservation – a tendency underlined by the total absence of the issue in the electoral debates earlier this month.
EDITORIAL Pacts falling in line with the facts 22-10-2021 21:53 The midterms might seem to be everything now (not least to the Frente de Todos government) but nothing lies beyond – the paradox is that in the heat of electoral battle, all politicians need to be looking ahead to future agreements.
EDITORIAL One month (and two years) to go 16-10-2021 00:01 The Frente de Todos coalition is failing to come up with any new answers now that reality is finally starting to bite.
EDITORIAL Could justice be just just? 09-10-2021 12:16 Unfashionable as this opinion might be, Argentine justice is showing various signs of a robust independence from outside pressures in exceptionally volatile political times.
EDITORIAL The poverty of patronage 02-10-2021 07:47 The defeat of the Frente de Todos government snapped a cruel paradox prevailing all this century whereby rising poverty represented a vicious socio-economic cycle for the nation but a virtuous circle for populist politics.
EDITORIAL Post-pandemic or a sign of panic? 25-09-2021 10:23 This premature optimism on Covid is clearly feelgood electioneering on the part of a government permanently on the prowl for the lost votes of a fortnight ago.
EDITORIAL The beginning of the end? 17-09-2021 22:07 The Frente de Todos coalition, with the vice-presidential tail wagging the presidential dog, has been a rare experiment premised on a united Peronism being big enough to contain its own historic contradictions by guaranteeing electoral victory and thus power. That myth was rudely shattered by last Sunday’s voting.
EDITORIAL Prematurely Accelerating Serious Options 11-09-2021 15:25 All too many politicians have been trying to bring the 2023 presidential elections ahead to tomorrow, seeking to stampede voters into a premature “the people or the republic” polarisation and to nationalise the voting.
EDITORIAL Bored to tears or bored to fears? 04-09-2021 10:00 Perhaps what Kirchnerism abhors most about Switzerland is not only the neutrality but also the centrality of that landlocked country bang in the middle of Europe – an aversion to the middle ground upon which it will depend so much in the next couple of months.
EDITORIAL Bullish about the economy, or just bull? 27-08-2021 21:24 Guzmán’s rosy indicators need to be seen against a backdrop of thousands of shuttered businesses, at least a quarter of a million permanent jobs lost and some three million people ejected from the middle class into poverty.
EDITORIAL A photo can be worth more than a thousand votes 21-08-2021 09:30 The Olivos scandal does not necessarily doom the government to midterm defeat – where it is absolutely irreversible is in the destruction of presidential authority.
EDITORIAL Is moderation in pursuit of justice no longer a virtue? 14-08-2021 07:34 Has our left-leaning government decided that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue?