The Kirchners turn in the direction of authoritarianism
By Tony Pagliaro
28.12.05 | Just like their beloved mentor, Hugo Chávez, in Argentina the Kirchner’s (as expected) have now clearly turned in the direction of authoritarianism and full control of Argentina, at all levels. Among the new wave of Latin American leftists, they do belong to the most undemocratic group. President Néstor Kirchner and his wife (known in Argentina as “Queen Christina”) live surrounded by adulation and constantly trafficking in intimidation and demagogy.
If you are a politician, even your deepest (or darkest) personal secrets suddenly become the Kirchner’s talking points. Like in Beria’s age, in the Soviet Union. The Kirchner’s are full of conspiracy theories and personal obsessions, with a single goal in mind: “complete power”.
The last conspiracy accusation involves nothing less than the Vice-President himself, Daniel Scioli, who (under the Constitution) could -at any time- replace Kirchner if anything goes wrong. He was just accused by Mrs. Kirchner of plotting against her, trying to show that she is what we all know she is: an authoritarian person.
But there is more. On December 22, (when the legislative year was about to close) the Kirchner couple sent a draft bill to Congress through which Mr. Kirchner (like his pal Fidel Castro) was given “all necessary powers” needed to “confront and handle” Argentina’s eternal “economic emergency”. It proposed a complete and unchecked total “delegation” of all legislative powers to the President, absolutely unconstitutional. A real “world record” in the history of constitutionalism, particularly when we are still talking about the 2001 crisis as the justification for the “delegation”.
Both Mr. Kirchner and his wife, it must be reminded, are very mediocre lawyers, and none of them as ever said or published anything considered brilliant on any legal issue, whatsoever. Populist Cristina Kirchner, however, likes to be “publicly told” that she is “a brilliant constitutional expert”, which she is not. All congressmen who belong to the various opposition political parties -all of them- when said draft bill was to be debated in Congress left the room, not to be part of such an unprecedented and amazing “permanent delegation” which was to be passed.
Before doing that, they were specifically denied the essential parliamentarian right to speak, by an incredible vote to such effect “won” by the majority who likes to operate in an unusual “silent” Congress, where nobody other than them can speak...
Legislators could, therefore, only vote: “yes” or “no”, but could not in any way or fashion, explain the reasons for their “yes” or “no”. A procedure bluntly anti-democratic, as most of what the Kirchner couple proposes and does.
Left alone in the room, with their own quorum, only Kirchner’s congressmen ended up voting for the bill, thus approving the “delegation” of all their constitutional powers to Mr. Kirchner.
It must be pointed out that Kirchner’s group secured congressional quorum by adding the vote of a legislator they had just “bribed”, who moved from the opposition (right after having been elected in an opposition party ticket) to Kirchner’s side, joining his troops: Mr. Eduardo Lorenzo, known as “Borocotó”.
In the “new” Argentina run by the Kirchners, anything and everything, but democracy.
Step by step, the country is dangerously becoming an authoritarian state. Like those who today are in government dreamed in the 70’s, when many of them participated in the Marxist guerrilla organizations then trained, financed, and organized by Fidel Castro. No surprise, therefore. They have not changed.
send this article to a friend >>