Former President Alberto Fernández, who ruled Argentina until the end of 2023, has returned to the country after two months in Spain. On December 10, the Peronist passed the baton to the right-wing extremist Javier Milei and traveled to Madrid before the end of the year to celebrate the holidays with his family, who had recently settled in the Spanish capital. After his return to Buenos Aires last Friday, his durability at the head of the Justicialista party, which he has headed since 2021, and his role in the opposition are as unknown as his future plans. There is no certainty as to whether the 64-year-old Fernández will return to Spain soon or remain in Argentina for the time being and what role he will play in the opposition.
Fernández's arrival at Ezeiza International Airport in Buenos Aires was captured by a news channel's cameras. However, the former president has not made any official statements regarding his return. Since Friday everything has been speculation. According to national media, governors and lawmakers from the Justicialista Party met before Friday to analyze the party's reorganization. Within Peronism, internal resistance to Fernández's leadership is nothing new. Some sectors are publicly calling for the former president to resign. The Peronist trade union group 62 Organizations, which has become the most powerful union federation in Argentina, called for “the immediate resignation” of the former president from the leadership of the Justicialist party before Fernández's arrival in the country and complained that after his departure the former president fled “to Spain, where he apparently went into exile himself.”
Fernández left office and the country after four turbulent years in government. The Peronist won the presidency in 2019 and his approval rating soon fell. His four-year term was marked by the Covid-19 pandemic, the break with vice president and mentor Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and an economy in crisis, with no dollar reserves in the central bank and inflation above 140%.
After the defeat of the Union for the Homeland alliance in the elections, Peronism was disarmed and its leadership became vacant. As of December 10, none of its key players in the ruling party have emerged as clear opposition figures. Alberto Fernández has been abroad so far; former candidate Sergio Massa from the Frente Renovador has appeared several times; Former Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was absent and broke her silence just a week ago.
In a 33-page text, the former president criticized the government's “wild adjustment program” and predicted that far-right economic policies would increase unemployment “and social despair in a kind of planned chaos,” paving the way for dollarization President promised. The former president's reemergence was seen as a “roadmap” by some parts of Peronism, while other areas opted for silence.
Kicillof, a candidate for leader
While defining the course of Peronism, one of the names that will lead the unity of the movement is mentioned: Axel Kicillof, a 52-year-old economist and Minister of Economy of Fernández de Kirchner at the end of his second term government (2012). -2015). Kicillof renewed his position as governor of Buenos Aires province in December. Kicillof comes from the country's largest constituency, a historically Peronist bastion, and is one of the key figures opposing Milei.
At the end of his term, Fernández continued to lead the Justicialista Party, the historical formation that unites various expressions of Peronism. In the 2023 elections, the party joined the Union for the Homeland alliance, which nominated Sergio Massa as its presidential candidate and then Minister of Economy. Peronism won the first round of voting, but then achieved one of the worst results in its history, trailing its rival Javier Milei by 11 points in the second round.
Fernández, who had remained on the sidelines during the campaign, then traveled to Spain, where his wife Fabiola Yáñez and his almost two-year-old son Francisco were waiting for him. “I will be back soon,” he warned on social media.
“I am flying to Spain on an Aerolíneas Argentinas flight, our flagship line, to see my family again and spend Christmas and New Year with them.” “I remain in constant contact with the leaders of my party to address current events,” said he in a statement. In another, he added that given the “catastrophic economic situation that will result from the measures taken by the Milei government,” he would return “to continue working as another militant.”
Fernández settled in Madrid and rarely publicly interfered in Argentine politics. From abroad he sent some messages to criticize the bill that Milei had submitted to Congress with more than 600 articles for the abolition of the state; to defend the president of Colombia, the leftist Gustavo Petro, from the complaints of the Ultra, which called him a “murderous communist”; to mourn the deaths of former Chilean President Sebastián Piñera and a former Argentine governor and to release a photo of his audience with Pope Francis at the Vatican.
In an interview with this newspaper in December, Fernández, a lawyer and professor at the University of Buenos Aires, revealed that he had “some suggestions” to “return to teaching” in Spain. “I think it's okay to distance yourself. Felipe González said that former presidents are Chinese vases because we are valuable, but they don’t know where to put us,” he said.
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