Argentina: Making A Comeback

ARGENTINA

Making A Comeback

Argentina’s center-left Peronists celebrated their return to power Monday after a four-year absence, setting off fears that the country could return to its populist ways, the Associated Press reported.

Election returns released Monday gave Alberto Fernandez enough votes to prevent a run-off against conservative incumbent President Mauricio Macri, and saw a swing back to center-left.

The victory also saw the return of former President Cristina Fernandez – no relation to the president-elect – a politician adored by the poor but feared by big business as vice-president.

There is concern that the Peronists’ victory will scare off investors and bring back Cristina Fernandez’s interventionist policies, which have been blamed for the current economic turmoil.

But analysts doubt that the former president’s policies will be revived as the country is not financially flush enough to freely spend as it did in prior decades.

Meanwhile, the former president, who governed from 2007 to 2015, faces charges of corruption, which she has denied.

Argentina has one of the highest inflation rates in the world, 56 percent annually, while a third of the population lives in poverty, reported the Guardian.

Macri was in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund to get a record $56 billion bailout in exchange for austerity measures. Now, the markets will watch how the new president, a critic of the plan, will handle the plan. Many Argentines blame the IMF for creating the conditions that led to the economic collapse at the beginning of the century, the AP reported.

G