In exclusive interview with DIARIO LAS AMERICASLamadrid stated that he agrees with Milei on the need to recover the fiscal deficit, organize the State and clean up the economy, but – in his opinion – it is also imperative to “persecute the corrupt and the thieves who looted Argentina.”
The legislator of the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) and former Argentine representative maintained that with this government policy of “not persecuting anyone,” Milei would be causing damage to his popularity and “consecrating impunity.” Furthermore, he said, the president would not be “seeking consensus with similar forces,” while Kirchnerism remains silent and then “goes for it.”
– From your point of view, what is the x-ray that can be presented to the world of what Argentina is today and what President Javier Milei is doing?
My view is very clear and has to do with a historical fight that we have waged against Kirchnerism. I have been the first whistleblower of acts of corruption involving former President Néstor Kirchner and former Vice President Cristina Kirchner, who seized public land in the south on which they built hotels, who carried out a highly sustained money laundering and corruption scheme in the time, what the prosecutor (General Diego) Luciani has called a pyramidal corruption organization. We have maintained that we see very well the way in which President Milei has explained the country’s economic catastrophe, but we see with great concern that he talks about the effects of the economic crisis, inflation, macroeconomic variables, but he does not speak with much emphasis of those responsible for this situation, which is the hypercorruption that looted Argentina and bankrupted the State. I have traveled through the United States, at my own expense, because I have been invited by foundations to talk about the situation in Argentina, both in Miami and Washington. Among the topics on the agenda I told them that corruption is the midwife of all the misfortunes that we are experiencing in Argentina and, in particular, we must put into context the inactivity that the Minister of Justice (of Argentina), Julio, is carrying out. Varona, who has said that he comes to pacify, that he does not come to persecute anyone, that he does not come to look for crimes. I am concerned that the blood, sweat and tears that President Milei is asking of the Argentines, who are having a very, very bad time, is not accompanied by exemplary measures so that there is no impunity in Argentina and what was stolen is recovered. , and this is not so. The president is going to do a lot of damage to himself and his popularity may fall, if his campaign proposal to fight against the corrupt political caste that brought us here is going to come to nothing, and it is even going to strengthen, paradoxically, the group. criminal of Kirchnerism that has caused us so much damage.
-We have barely completed three months of Milei’s government. Is it enough time for the president to have taken those actions that you point out?
It’s not enough time to fix the economy. In that I give credit to the president and my vision is to accompany the profound changes, end the fiscal deficit, organize the State, sincere and clean up the economy. But it is enough time for the State to have shown, something that we cannot say is happening, a clear, clear and forceful will to go against corruption, which is what devastated Argentina. There are very compelling examples in which one could not be expecting results, but rather an action that we do not see today. The president has deactivated niches of corruption in different State agencies. It has closed import duties that had been promoted by Sergio Massa, the previous Minister of Economy and candidate for president, through which, through a whole network of corruption, they had stolen more than 30,000 million dollars from the State and the president asked to end them. . That seemed good to us, but there is no complaint from the State for any irregularity, there is no one accused, no administrative summary in which responsibilities are defined. Also due to the embezzlement of the Central Bank, Massa’s ‘Platita Plan’ to reach the elections with a chance, no criminal complaint has been filed. The most important of all the examples, to which I have placed a lot of emphasis, is a topic that is not talked about much in Argentina, but that aroused a lot of interest in the United States on our tour and is the YPF trial (expropriation of that company during the government of Alberto Fernández), which is being processed in New York courts and in which the judge has almost ordered embargoes worth 16.1 billion dollars and, through a scheme, there is a mafia group that intends collect that millionaire amount in this case, which is the largest fraud in the history of Argentina. What has the president done with this? I have personally brought to the Casa Rosada a proposal to recover what was stolen and avoid this scheme. The only thing the president has done is express his willingness to pay and to do so quickly, even with a tax on Argentines to pay those million dollars.
-According to what you propose, could we be facing a ‘clean slate’ government policy?
Yes of course. The president and the government say it openly, and this is the main disagreement I have with the president. He has said in his inauguration speech that he is not coming to persecute anyone. And I have said it in many media and places that he is wrong. The president has to persecute the corrupt and the thieves who looted Argentina. Here we see that he is consecrating impunity. Argentina not only needs to improve the economic situation, it also needs to determine those responsible, by name and surname, for the greatest tragedy of corruption that devastated the country, to pay for their crimes, to recover what was stolen and to bell the cat. Another example is that the president has gone to Davos and told the world, in summary, that what is happening in Argentina is the fault of communism. This is an abstract question, an entelechy. Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky or Nikita Khrushchev did not rob us Argentines, Néstor Kirchner, Cristina Kirchner, Alberto Fernández and Sergio Massa robbed us Argentines.
-We know that Milei came to power, but he has very little legislative support. From his point of view, could not touching the political class that has governed for so many years in Argentina be seen as a strategy to not go against those who continue to be represented in the National Congress?
If that is the strategy, it is a calamitous strategy, and also unethical. Why do I say it is calamitous? Because it ends badly. Because nothing good is going to come from wanting to make a pact with the past that brought you here. It is wanting to put out a fire with fire. The president, instead of seeking consensus with related forces, which could be those of Together for Change, who are not from Kirchnerism, attacks those sectors, mistreats them, blames them for the problem, insults them and tells them that they are asking him bribery to pass certain laws. Meanwhile, Kirchnerism remains silent, a silence that seems bought, and that seeks to hope that the situation of social discontent or the serious economic crisis, which has worsened since Milei assumed the presidency, ends up lowering the president’s popularity and then they go to go for him.
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