Macri: "The PJ's vocation is to keep privileges and abuses at all costs"

The president criticized Vietnam for attempting Peronism to restrict the decree of extinction of power; downplayed Lousteau's challenge and announced that he would go for reelection

HANOI, Vietnam.- The President

Mauricio Macri

Look up and turn your head slightly to the left. "It's not possible," he says with annoyance. For the first time during the interview, he pauses. They are only a few seconds. Four or five. Enough to choose the right words. "There is [en el peronismo] a vocation to preserve at all costs privileges and abuses ", he accuses harshly.

This is the president's first reaction after the brake imposed by Peronism to the decree that allowed the domain extinguishment system, mechanism created to accelerate the recovery of badets from corruption and drug trafficking. "Speak badly of them", bad.

In an interview with
THE NATION

at the end of his trip to Asia,

the head of state defends the economic course and proposes that, without the measures that he would have taken, the country would have been plunged into a crisis. "We would have finished like in 2001", describes the president, who confirmed that he would represent himself. During the conversation, which lasted 25 minutes, he also talked about

Cristina Kirchner,

the DUC and the decision of the Court in favor of San Luis.

– Mr President, would you like to be re-elected?

-Yes, I've already said that I'm ready.

– Until now, I had explained that it depended if the Argentines thought that "the change was worth it" …

This process of change is only at the beginning; I can not give up something that I started. I hope that the Argentineans will reconfirm that the path we have taken is the right one and that we will persist. We, the Argentineans, must reaffirm every day that we want a society with a higher democratic quality, which means greater transparency, truth, solid institutions.

In this sense, Peronism joined this week to reject its decree of necessity and urgency (DNU) on the extinction of the dominion. What do you think?

– What does Peronism do poorly. A central focus of change is to end impunity and return what has been stolen. We do not propose the DNU because there was already three years of debate in Congress and the truth is that the Argentines want them to return what they stole. This money is the sewer that we do not have, the roads we do not have, the energy we lack.

-Is the union of different sectors such as Kirchnerism and Federal Peronism surprised?

-As Argentina, it hurts. There is [en el peronismo] a vocation to retain privileges and abuses at all costs. This is not possible … We must not understand that the first person responsible for the 30% of poverty that we have in Argentina is corruption. More than a million people that we were able to evacuate the sewers during these three years of government were entitled to it a long time ago. Most of the work we have completed and the work in progress has been promised 20, 30 and 40 years ago. It is very important that we understand this and I think that there are still many Argentines who do not realize it. That is why I say that today, we are on a much stronger base to be able to grow than in 2015.

-In an interview with LA NACION, Martín Lousteau claimed detainees in Cambiemos. What did you think of his words?

-I saw the title nothing more.

-Is it ready to allow the internal candidate for the presidential candidacy to take up the challenge of the UCR?

-As a change, there has always been the ability to speak. If we encouraged freedom of expression and dissent in general, obviously also in change. The truth is that we change is stronger than the day zero. There is a national table of change [los referentes son Marcos Peña, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, María Eugenia Vidal, Francisco Quintana y Rogelio Frigerio, entre otros] who was responsible for closing all districts, the majority with unique nominations. But in others, there were candidates who could reconcile us and ask the intern. This table will be what defines what is done at the presidential level.

-So, do you think that Martin Lousteau's request was unfair?

-Everyone expresses himself as he thinks. During this trip, I invited you to know the importance of India and Vietnam for our future. Let them know, as I have done with everyone I have invited on each trip, to help them understand the world. Isolated from the world, we have no future. I hope you have served the trip to learn and convey that.

-Learn how it happened with Sergio Mbada? [En 2016 lo presentó en Davos como el futuro del peronismo]

-[Risas] Sometimes they learn and sometimes not. Sometimes I do not do so well.

-Lindec acknowledged that 117,000 jobs had been lost in 2018. The drop in employment was compounded by the decline in the power to purchase wages. Generating genuine work and inflation were the two axes of his campaign in 2015. Besides what has happened in the world and drought, why do you think it failed?

-No, no … This is not "apart"! Argentina has serious structural problems, many of which have been deeply aggravated by the previous government. We started to insert ourselves into the world, we left the default choice and defined a growth program, but as there was no consensus to carry out structural reforms, we decided to proceed gradually and see how we settled the question by letting us out of the markets. In 2018, as we were doing well, tensions between the United States and China turned and emerging markets ran out of funding and we experienced the worst drought in 50 years. That's why I thank the Argentines and the international support, via the IMF, and we started to come out of the storm. If we had not reacted to the speed, we would have finished as in 2001.

– The issue has been reduced, the activity has dropped, but inflation has not abated. Do not you plan to act on the price trainers?

-The number one goal is to reduce poverty and the main cause of poverty is inflation. Always inflation scam the least. Today, with a serious monetary policy and an approved budget for the primary fiscal balance, this year's inflation will be significantly lower than that of 2018. And if we persist and re-approve [en el Congreso] a budget that envisages something that is perhaps the main axis of social justice, namely to reduce poverty and fight against inflation. If we can ratify this year, it will continue to decline in 2020 and we will have an inflation figure in the next few years.

-Then, do you think that it is not necessary to act on the price trainers?

-Because there is more terror, it has not worked anywhere in the world. This allows to have a competitive price market and to have a state that does not generate the level of disorder that has been created in Argentina in recent decades.

-After four years, everything indicates that he will run again in the polls against Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. What do you think?

-We expected that Peronism was renewed under his direction, but failed.

– Do you see the former president as her rival in October?

-It's not what I've visualized, that's what the company says. We do not encourage it. This is how she and her husband ran the country for 12 years and some believe that an isolated model of the world and based on the fact that the state will provide everything will be sustainable over time. Populism awakens fascination for a while because, of course, all the country's reserves are distributed. They left after destroying all the reserves. Everything had been consumed.

-Roberto Lavagna, Mbadismo and Kirchnerism and even the CGT, which met with the IMF delegation, ensure that it will be necessary to renegotiate the agreement because it is impossible to respect it. Will it have to be renegotiated with the International Monetary Fund?

That would be doing what Argentina has already done, perhaps like nowhere else in the world, over the last fifty years or so. This does not make us credible, not trustworthy. The most important thing in life is trust. That is why I ask the Argentines that beyond all that we have lived, they have confidence in what they do. If we go back to find the shortcut, the fan of saying we will not pay, will take us years late. We must say that we have learned from our past. When I hear these propositions of Peronism, I say: "They are what they have given us for many years and that is what we are". So we are after all the recipes that they have applied.

-Gabriela Michetti, Patricia Bullrich and Carolina Stanley look like formula partners to look for the next term. Have you already made a decision about the vice-presidential candidate?

-There is no decision about it. Four months to close the lists. I focus on management.