News From Argentina: General

Jack Welch on Kirchner et al

Pete35 — 2006-11-15T07:59:00-03:00

GE’S JACK WELCH SPEAKS IN SANTIAGO, CHILE

(November 15, 2006) Former CEO of General Electric and “Business Man of the Century” Jack Welch visited Chile on Monday to speak in front of 1,200 business people in Santiago’s Espacio Riesco conference centre.

Welch praised President Bachelet on several counts, but criticized her government’s gender-equality policy. “She included the policy in her campaign, she won and she has the right to implement it,” said Welch. “Do I agree with it? Of course not! Not at all! I believe in meritocracy.”

Welch also stressed the need for flexibility in a company’s structure and the importance of worker’s rights to compensation. “Greater flexibility in the work place increases the chances for meritocracy and creates companies that win results,” he said.

At them same time, he stressed that companies have a responsibility to their workers and acknowledged the need for social safetynets. “If you make the mistake of hiring a bad worker, you should pay for it,” he said. “Indemnity payments are part of doing business.”

When speaking of other Latin American leaders, the American businessman was less complimentary. In reference to Argentina’s President Néstor Kirchner he said, “His ability to lead depends on who you ask: whether it’s a businessman, whose prices he fixes and therefore they don’t like him, or a normal, average person.”

Of Hugo Chávez, Welch was even more scathing. “I have absolutely nothing to say about him,” he said. “His comments about the U.S. were outrageous.”

As a Republican, Welch was disappointed by the results of last week’s election, but he didn’t see any reason worry about the economy under greater Democratic influence.

Welch, who turns 71 this week, put his success down to “luck, the ability to choose employees well and enjoy watching them develop, as well as enjoying a challenge.” He managed GE for twenty years between 1981 and 2001, during which time he increased GE’s market value by US$400 billion.

SOURCE: LA TERCERA
By Beatrice Karol Burks (editor@santiagotimes.cl)

Future President of Argentina, Kirchner or Kirchner?

Pete35 — 2006-11-10T07:57:00-03:00

From MercoPress, Nov. 10

Argentina’s First Lady, Senator Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is positioned to become the government’s candidate for next year’s presidential election, wrote analyst Joaquín Morales Solá in his Thursday column of La Nacion.

Considered the best informed analyst of the Argentine political scenario and who regularly airs his comments on paper, radio and television, Morales Solá reveals that President Nestor Kirchner has personally mentioned his wife’s name to several political allies with whom he is building an electoral alliance for the challenging 2007.

“I’m leaving. But Cristina will stay on”, was Kirchner’s message.

Furthermore, a similar confession was done to Spain’s Secretary for Ibero-America, Trinidad Jimenez, (a woman) who recently visited Montevideo and Buenos Aires. .
“The next Argentine president will be a woman”, he assured the visiting minister.

According to Morales Solá the president’s current decision to drop his own re-election bid can be traced to the recent landslide rejection from the electorate of one of Argentina’s poorest provinces which against all odds, voted down a reform to enable the local governor, --and Kirchner ally--, an “indefinite re-election”.

A political instrument recourse pioneered by the Kirchners in their Santa Cruz province.

If the Misiones attempt had been successful, other governors from politically heavyweight provinces were lined up to follow suit, including the all powerful Buenos Aires province.

But the 700.000 voters of dirt poor Misiones led by a bishop, with the Catholic Church blessing, organized a “dignity front” causing one of the Kirchner administration’s greatest political defeat.

However Morales Solá also points out that Mr. Kirchner has proved to have a sharp political talent and the idea of floating the First Lady’s name could give him breathing space. Opinion polls show him garnering the re-election bid in the first round, but not so Mrs Kirchner.

Besides the collapse of the “indefinite re-election” proposal leaves the governorship of the crucial province of Buenos Aires open and several hopefuls from the Kirchner first line have tossed their hats into the ring, and why exclude Mrs Kirchner’s, a very popular senator for the much coveted province with 14 million citizens.

Morales Solá nevertheless ends his column recalling that President Kirchner is quick to respond when “reality says no” and, not let us forget that Mr. Kirchner has the purse strings of an economy booming for the fourth straight year, plus the fact there’s no organized opposition on sight.

Small Province Big Lesson

Pete35 — 2006-11-01T08:22:00-03:00

From the Buenos Aires Herald, Nov. 1, '06:
A graveyard silence reigned among national government officials yesterday as opposition leaders celebrated an electoral defeat of an ally of President Néstor Kirchner’s in an election on Sunday in Misiones. Kirchner chose to extend his stay in his native province Santa Cruz yesterday following the failure of Carlos Rovira, the governor of Misiones, to win a Constituent Assembly election in a bid to reform the provincial Constitution. Kirchner’s leading spokesmen, Cabinet chief Alberto Fernández and Interior Minister Aníbal Fernández, avoided speaking to the press about the unexpected defeat which saw a coalition led by Bishop Emeritus Joaquín Piña win by more than 13 points.
Rovira himself said that the result cannot be argued with. "It must be accepted."
Unlike the Kirchner camp, members of the opposition jumped on the chance of celebrating a rare low point in the President’s popularity.
Raúl Alfonsín, the ex-president, said the electoral result was not a political victory, "It was a defence of the republic, of dignity, in the words of Piña."
One of Piña’s main campaign arguments was that Rovira’s attempt to clinch the right to unlimited re-elections goes against democracy itself. In the days prior to the election, Piña — who has said he respects and admires many of Kirchner’s policies — said he hoped the President would realize it was a mistake to support Rovira.