Global Courant 2023-05-11 22:03:24
Cristian Kirchner and Martín Lousteau crossed paths this Thursday with a spicy back and forth in advance of the start of the management report that Agustín Rossi in the Senate.
“Senator, you should have already learned that a quorum is not needed for today’s session. Thank you,” the current vice president told the radical senator and pre-candidate for head of government for the City of Buenos Aires, when questioned by the man from Juntos por the change.
Lousteau’s response was immediate: “They should have learned economics, too.”
But Cristina went further and just before the anthem began to play in the venue, she retorted: “You taught me with the 125.”
The video of the crossing quickly appeared on social networks and was echoed by some of the leaders closest to Kirchnerism, such as Juliana Di Tulio and Juan Grabois.
What is “La 125” that Cristina Kirchner mentioned
Resolution 125 mentioned by Cristina in 2008 had Lousteau and the then President of the Nation as two of the main protagonists. It was the one that generated the biggest conflict between the government and the countryside, with the famous “no positive” vote of the radical K, Julio Cobos, who was CFK’s vice-president, in the middle.
On March 23 of that year, the then Minister of Economy, Martín Lousteau, issued a resolution, 125/2008, endorsed by Cristina and Alberto Fernández, then head of the Cabinet, which made the withholdings for grain producers mobile. .
Mobility was based on price: with grains, soybeans in this case, sold at a low price, withholdings would be almost non-existent. At higher prices, higher retentions. An international price of $400 per ton of soybeans would result in a withholding of almost 38 percent for producers. If the price of soybeans increased, and everything indicated that it was going to increase, and it did increase, the withholdings could reach up to 49 percent: half of what is produced by agriculture would thus go into the hands of the Government.
Rural entities, forever divided, came together as one to reject the measure. The roadblocks in the interior were born, the cacerolazos in the Capital, the counter marches K with the former piquetero Luis D’Elía to the blows against the opponents in Plaza de Mayo, the shortages in the big cities and a climate of tension every ever more visible.
The President had no better idea than to condemn the protests on national television on March 25 with an unhappy phrase: she spoke of “abundance pickets” and reversed the burden of proof: she said she was not going to allow herself to be extorted.
Kirchnerism saw in the protests “an attempted coup” and in the so-called “dialogue tables” aimed at reaching an agreement, there was everything, including dialogue.
The conflict went to the courts: in May eight ruralistas were arrested for the roadblocks and in June the leader Alfredo de Angeli, one of the leaders of the protest, was arrested. After that arrest, the metallic concert of saucepans reached the Quinta de Olivos.
On June 17, the President announced, also on national television, that Lousteau’s resolution (who had resigned on April 25) was now a bill that would be sent to Congress. The Government was convinced that in Parliament it was going to win the battle.
Deputies approved it by a narrow margin of seven votes, 129 to 122. And on July 16, in the Senate, a long and vehement debate began that lasted eighteen hours and which, before the first vote, was looming as a tie.
More than just glimpsing it, the legislators knew it: the senators of the provinces affected by the 125, including some “radical K” who decided to vote against the government project, put things so much against the “showing of hands” of the K legislators .
The debate entered a long intermission room, supposedly intended to define positions so that Cobos did not have to settle differences. Already in the early hours of July 17, the Senate prepared to vote on the bill that would establish mobile withholdings for the agricultural sector, with the announced tie in dance.
The Senate voted: 36 votes in favor, 36 against. A perfect tie. Overwhelmed by responsibility, Cobos spoke: “History will judge me. I don’t know how. But I hope this is understood. I am a family man, like all of you, with a responsibility in this case (…) I am acting accordingly with my convictions. Let history judge me. I apologize if I’m wrong. My vote is not positive, my vote is against”.
The next day, the Executive Branch withdrew the bill and 125 was almost forgotten.
