with poorer than votes | Milestones of Néstor Kirchner’s economic policy, 20 years after his inauguration

On May 25, 2003, “with more poor people than votes”, Néstor Kirchner assumed the presidency of the nation. With just 22 percent support in Argentina, the Patagonian lawyer took charge of a politically, economically and socially devastated Argentina. A populace that refuses to trust five presidents in eleven days, with the open wounds of Corralito’s 2001 crackdown. With numbers that spoke for themselves: 54 percent of poor people -according to the poverty measure of the time-; 27.7 percent were homeless; 20.4 percent unemployed and external debt representing 130 percent of GDP.

Page I1 It is proposed to arbitrarily reduce its main achievements in economic terms: the reorganization of presidential power and Take command of the economyput Economic growth in the service of income distributionChange structurally Reduces the rate of labor market informality And the race Economic sovereignty through debt restructuring Individual and external through payments to the IMF.

When asked by this newspaper about his major administrative milestones, the consensus among economists is that Kirchner, in a short period of time, To rebuild what was destroyed over decades: “Nestor Kirchner’s government had undeniable successes from the beginning. In my opinion, the reorganization of presidential power after the institutional crisis experienced was one of the most important,” he says. Belisa Miceli, the Economy Minister during the last two years in office. “The most remarkable thing about Néstor Kirchner’s economic policy is that he often ordered an inherited disorder. But he did it in a double sense: he ordered the macroeconomic by regulating the microeconomic. In other words: he did not sacrifice people to have a macro. Bonanza”, Latin for geopolitics. Accomplishing Executive Director of the US Strategy Center (SELAC). Alfredo Serrano Mancilla.

President and Minister

“The journalist asked him who was going to be his economy minister, and the answer confused many: “It’s me.” Alfredo Zayad explained in a special edition five years after his death that one of Kirchner’s first hurdles was to establish common sense in economic matters. “And he accomplished it: he carried out daily monitoring of mainstream economic economics. Variables and income distribution and economic sovereignty to achieve development with economic sovereignty.” Tools were used.

After the return to democracy, but deepened in the 1990s with the figure of Domingo Cavallo, economy ministers were technocrats with equal or greater power than presidents. On day one and against all odds, Kirchner took the lead and built a structure New meaning in management of economic policy. Felisa Miceli, one of his economy ministers, is honest: “It is not less important to have the broad and stable support of the country’s president when implementing economic policy.”

“Kirchner buried what had until then been seen as natural: hiring the world of business and finance to manage the economy,” Zayad continues: “One of the most substantial contributions of that early definition was the conceptual shift in what economics is, interests and power, and politics, an ordering tool of the economic world. People By making full use of the power conferred by will, he questioned the conservative world, making it clear that real economics is more. The dominant feature of societies is disequilibrium due to the intervention of unforeseeable factors and complexities than models with mathematical equations”.

A more equitable economy

One of the hallmarks of the economy between 2003 and 2007 was growth at “Chinese rates,” sustained at an average annual growth rate of more than 8 percent. “The debate among economists in the early years of Kirchnerism had to do with the stability of economic growth. There was no expansion of GDP before and after,” says Miceli. While this growth was not based on an increase in exports due to the international prices of Argentina’s exports, the economy’s investment rate went from 11 to 23 percent of GDP during the government’s four years. “At the end of the decade, Argentina had the highest growth rates in the region and could proudly show the results of a study by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEBAL), which concluded that in the era of goods, Argentina was the only country in the region that did not prioritize its export basket”, “Los Tres Kirchnerismos” The book’s author, economist Matthias Gulfas, fills in an article in the journal Nueva Sociedad.

The President-Economics Minister confirmed this Development does not rest in the hands of a few. “One of the main axes of the administration of Néstor Kirchner’s government went through the restructuring of wages and incomes. Within this framework, real salaries for 2007 averaged the value of the moment before the mega-recession. The end of the disability and this led to a 25 percent drop in wages. This, within the framework of the fixed income policy and produced significant work,” says Martín Schorr, PhD in Social Sciences.

As for employment, unemployment fell below single digits for the first time in 13 years, from 20.4 percent in 2003 to 7.8 percent in 2008, with nearly 6 million jobs lost. Not only the number of employees grew, but also the quality: in fact, the growth rate of registered wage earners between 2003 and 2008 was much faster than the growth of total employees. In 2004 the total employment rate increased by 4.2 percent and formal salary positions increased by 11.4 percent, in 2005 by 3.2 total and 10.9 percent, in 2006 by 4.4 gross and 9.2 percent by salary, in 2007 by 1.2 and 2.290 and 8 percent. , respectively.

Upon his inauguration, he was responsible for raising the minimum, living and mobile wages by 50 percent. Starting in 2004, Nestor Kirchner’s government broke with the logic of the 1990s, which established a general average for wages of around 25 percent, and used wage negotiations as a tool to push upward. In fact, in 2004, the minimum wage represented 40 to 45 percent of the average wage earned in the economy. Family allowances have increased by more than 100 percent.

Economic sovereignty

“We want to be independent again and we want to manage our country’s springs. For this reason we decided a few hours ago to end that 50-year debt, we told the International Monetary Fund, we said enough to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Argentina pays the foreign debt, Argentina frees itself, Argentina builds its destiny, Argentina begins to build its independence”, with these words, former President Nestor Kirchner announced on December 15, 2005 that he would pay 9,810 million dollars to the IMF.

“They ask me many times how it is possible to pay the IMF,” Miceli continues: “Almost a third of the BCRA’s international reserves were used up in January 2006, and exchange rate shocks and used up when the payments were made. Within a year the reserves A road built in previous years to accumulate reserves made it possible, and the regional situation, Brazil’s repayment of debt to the IMF, helped achieve it.

A few months ago, in March, Nestor Kirchner negotiated the largest debt relief in history with 76 percent support. During the short term of the government of Adolfo Rodríguez Sa, 81,200 million dollars were defaulted in 2001. After months of negotiations, the government completed the first debt swap by removing 70 percent of the capital.