President Javier Milei is subjecting Argentines to “useless sacrifice” and doesn’t have a stabilization plan,  former president and Peronist leader Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (CFK) said in her first public appearance since the president’s inauguration. 

CFK spoke at a rally in a newly-inaugurated stadium in Quilmes meant to commemorate the 21st anniversary of the 2003 elections that ended with her late husband Néstor Kirchner becoming Argentina’s president. The stadium itself was named after him.

During her speech of little over an hour, Kirchner defended her husband’s presidency while also hurling criticism at Milei and his austerity policies.    

“Sixty percent of the population can vote for you, but if people starve to death or lose their jobs and unemployment increases under your watch, then what good is it?,” she asked, claiming as well that the government’s touted fiscal surplus is not an accurate description of the country’s finances.

“I’ve heard [Milei] congratulate himself for the public surplus in the first trimester — but you didn’t pay for energy, public works, or what you owe provinces and universities,” said Kirchner, who appeared alongside Quilmes mayor Mayra Mendoza, a Peronist leader close to La Cámpora, the youth organization founded by the former president’s son, Máximo Kirchner. 

“You don’t have a surplus,” she said. 

CFK also lambasted Milei’s omnibus bill and his plans to privatize public companies, stating that the government’s economic plan relies only on extracting natural resources. “More than anarcho-capitalism, it is anarcho-colonialism,” she said, warning that unemployment is bound to increase.

“He only has an austerity plan,” she stated.

The presidency of Néstor Kirchner

Néstor Kirchner, at the time the relatively unknown governor of Santa Cruz, came in second in the 2003 presidential elections, which took place on April 27. However, after winner Carlos Menem stepped down, fearing that he would lose in the required runoff, Kirchner was declared president. He was inaugurated on May 25, 2003, spawning a twelve-year cycle of center-left Kirchnerist administrations — one by Kirchner himself (2003-2007) and two by CFK (2007-2011, 2011-2015).

Her appointed candidate, Daniel Scioli, lost in the 2015 presidential elections to right-wing businessman Mauricio Macri. Fernández de Kirchner participated in the 2019 elections as presidential candidate Alberto Fernández’s running mate.

CFK’s speech comes in the midst of severe inner fighting within Peronism as her son and deputy, Máximo Kirchner, is feuding with Buenos Aires province governor Axel Kicillof over party leadership. Earlier on Saturday, Kicillof held an event of his own in Avellaneda, where he celebrated Néstor Kirchner’s presidency and inaugurated a cultural center named after him.