Pacto Social in Danger # 1: Moyano

Yesterday. a warning was made to our new elected president. For whoever thought that this country and signing a Social Pact to appease the business community and the trade-unions, Monday November 12th marked the end of that belief as something easily achievable.

An interesting law was being discussed yesterday; one about a scoring system - much like there are in more civilized, developed and organized countries - whereby through a credit system you score "negative points" each time you make a serious traffic offense. Since the elimination of petty offenses from the code, this should have been a very quiet matter. It wasn't.

Transport trade unions - cabs, truckers and bus-drivers - apparently tried to enter Congress and show our lawmaker's what they would do about this matter, which they suddenly and after months of lobbying, all of a sudden rejected. As they took matter into their hands, policemen reacted - some more forcefully than others - and it turned quickly into an all-out battle between union workers and cops.

The visible result: lots of flying rocks, more than 40 wounded - more cops than workers let it be said - and one cop separated from the force due to a movie depicting an "excessive use of force"against a manifester.

The aftermath: Moyano threatened to pull a full-blown transport strike as a result of the "clash" between unionists and policemen. Kirchner blew a fuse and apparently had a very tough conversation with Moyano, who withdrew the strike but is now being planned for November 29th, it seems. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner did not intervene (as was expected, since she has not assumed her presidential duties yet).

The invisible result: Moyano is pushing the envelope trying to understand his limits - he has amassed a large amount of power and is seeking to understand where and when it is best deployed. If such a reaction happened after such a small conflict, one can only imagine the negotiating style that will accompany multi-year salary negotiations. Cristina is in for a big surprise if she expects Moyano to be tamed after her husband's first term.

God help us. We need all the help we can get.

Sunday Headline News in Argentina: November 11th, 2007

And we're at the start of another interesting week in Argentina ... October was quite calm due to the elections, but November seems to be back with a vengeance! There are not only local problems (inflation, insecurity, protests), there is also conflict on the international front. As long as commodities keep high prices, the K Government will be happy and collecting billions of dollars more from export taxes ...

This weekend the top news spot was captured by International News this weekend - both showcasing Spain: while La Nación dealt with the sour exchange between Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Spain's Rey Juan Carlos. While Spain's PM Zapatero was giving his speech, he was rudely interrupted by Chavez who meant to attack Jose María Aznar, the former PM. The King defended Aznar by telling Chavez to shut up, and left the conference room after the shouting contest.

Clarín chooses to go back to the paper-mill dispute between Argentina and Uruguay, and states that Spain wants both countries to re-ignite settlement talks. Not only did they not do so, but Uruguayan President Tabaré Vázquez went as far as to shut down the frontier at Gualeguaychu to prevent any Argentine attack on Botnia's recently-turned-operational mill. This conflict, which was 2006's top news, seems to want to carry itself over into 2008. By the lack of progress around it, it most certainly will be around for New Years'.

Secondary news at both papers were just that: secondary. La Nación had as second important story Clarin's first, and Clarin had La Nacion's first as second, so that made an interesting role-switching exercise. At La Nación, other news were about panic rooms, the local rugby championship and the Colón Theater's restoration. Clarín has many small side stories: the main ones are about the actual Economy Minister, who will apparently not be part of Cristina's cabinet, and a local druglord's confession, as well as Seferino Namuncurá's beatification process and soccer violence.

The summary of today's papers would be: if the Spanish fight that much, ¿how can you expect the apple (us Argentineans) to fall far from the tree? And don't get me into our Italian heritage ...

Sunday Headline News in Argentina: November 4th, 2007 - One Week with Madame President

Madame President has been elected for exactly a week today, and already she has shown how intelligent and wily she can be: she held several interviews with a wide array of reporters - almost all one-on-ones - and even with reporters she very recently criticized for being "opinionated" and reporting with a bias (La Nación Joaquin Morales Solá). She held her ground with most of them, although once or twice she showed her claws: when being asked why she dressed up, she answered "Do you want me to dress as if I were poor?" (btw, her husbands wealth declaration says he has approx. U$S 2 million in the bank plus 28 pieces of real estate ... not bad for a president), and when Marcelo Bonelli asked her about her relationship with the press she "told him off" like a first grade teacher to her student. We have four very interesting years ahead of us.

As for the papers today, they shared the main news as political: La Nación highlighted some newly-elected faces from the Province of Buenos Aires, and Clarín showcased a potential conflict between Carrió and Macri over the leadership of the opposition to the newly-elected President.

The truth is that, although both share the strong opposition to the leading party, their approaches and ideas today are quite
different and show significant gaps - which some consider unsurmountable. Be as it may, Macri will be leading the destinies of the district where Carrió won in last Sunday's presidential election, so the people who elected Macri must see something in Carrió and vice versa. This should help bridge some of the gaps in the not too distant future.

As for the other news, both papers showed Boca Juniors' victory over Racing Club on saturday, and while La Nación mentioned also the growing consumption of drugs and an incipient corruption scandal involving the Secretary of Transport; while Clarín settles for the Boca Juniors' victory and with an optimisting comment from Spain's Zapatero saying how Argentina is reaching the end of its nightmare ... for this week, enough said!