Briefings & Intelligence

17-12-2015: Latin American Weekly Report

  • LatinNews

Macri hits the ground running in Argentina

Speculation abounded about what measures Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri would take first after his investiture on 10 December. The consensus view was that economic reforms would come first. Macri did not disappoint. His government wasted no time in issuing decrees ending most tariffs on agricultural and industrial exports, and then took the plunge by lifting currency controls. What nobody anticipated was that he would also issue a decree in the judicial sphere, appointing two supreme court magistrates. This move was highly controversial, prompting fierce criticism from the opposition, and unease from political allies. Just days earlier Macri had promised during his inaugural address that “there will be no Macrista judges in my government”, an allusion to the propensity of his Peronist predecessors to stack courts with politically loyal justices.

In the days leading up to Macri’s investiture Argentines were treated to the unedifying spectacle of President Cristina Fernández refusing to partake in the ceremonial protocol to hand over the presidential sash and staff of office to her successor. In the end the president of the senate, Federico Pinedo, a member of Macri’s Propuesta Republicana (PRO), performed the honour after officially succeeding Fernández at midnight; Fernández vacated the presidential palace Casa Rosada in advance of the ceremony.

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