News of Martín Gambarotta

Martín Gambarotta

Martín Gambarotta

Economy Minister, Martin Guzman.

DEBT, DEFAULT. DEAL

Goodbye default my old friend

08-08-2020 08:44 The ultimate question is if this agreement will spare Argentina the ordeal of holdout bondholders – Guzmán will have conjured a miracle if there are none to worry about once this deal is done.

by Martín Gambarotta

The judicial reform bill will truly test the ruling coalition's capacity for the first time since President Fernández took office late last year.

POLITICS & THE PANDEMIC

Justice (reform) for all

01-08-2020 10:04 The judicial reform bill will truly test the ruling coalition's capacity for the first time since President Fernández took office late last year.

by Martín Gambarotta

Is there any government plan?

POLITICS & THE PANDEMIC

Don't plan on a plan from Fernández

25-07-2020 08:20 By shunning “plans” Fernández is emulating his former boss, late former president Néstor Kirchner, who preferred to deal with issues as they came along without committing to a plan that could be easily derided.

by Martín Gambarotta

The bipartisan civility of those in charge is holding up – for now. Buenos Aires City Mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, a leader of the opposition centre-right coalition, met with Buenos Aires Province’s Kirchnerite Governor Axel Kicillof on Monday to agree a plan to loosen restrictions, which will kick in next week.

POLITICS & THE PANDEMIC

Coalitions under stress

18-07-2020 08:37 Political rivals are accusing each other of being “haters” – but of course, one person's hater is another person's hero. The pressure, however, is not just external.

by Martín Gambarotta

The political arguing will never go away in Argentina.

POLITICS & THE PANDEMIC

The arguing never stops

11-07-2020 08:13 The arguing will never go away. At times it pauses briefly when the public is hit by unsettling news on the coronavirus front, but then, in no time at all, the bickering begins once more.

by Martín Gambarotta

The political volatility beetween the City and the Province of Buenos Aires has not gone away.

POLITICS & THE PANDEMIC

Metropolitan area blues

04-07-2020 07:29 The display of bipartisan civility, even with disagreements behind the scenes between Buenos Aires City and Province, is now routine. Yet the volatility has not gone away.

by Martín Gambarotta

Kicillof and Larreta are showing manners and are holding regular meetings to sort out their differences before announcing decisions together.

100 DAYS OF QUARANTINE

Hibernation time

27-06-2020 08:09 The pandemic is a tremendous challenge for the metropolitan area. Only history will explain the true extent of economic devastation in the region.

by Martín Gambarotta

It’s not clear if the president is deliberately swamp- ing the media with interviews or if he is simply hooked on speaking to the press without a clear communica- tions strategy in mind. But when a president speaks there is no choice but to listen up.

POLITICS & THE PANDEMIC

Fernández TV

20-06-2020 09:02 Time will tell if the delays with the Vicentin and wealth tax bills are a deliberate strategy by the president to buffer the complaints by the lobbies who have historically clashed with Kirchnerismo.

by Martín Gambarotta

President Alberto Fernández, the country’s centre-left Peronist leader, has announced the state takeover of the debt-saddled soy crusher Vicentin.

POLITICS IN THE PANDEMIC

Nationalise this

13-06-2020 08:08 A raw nerve has been touched that is at the centre of Argentina's perpetual political rift – to the nation’s business community the Peronist administration has crossed a line, trying to grab a private-sector company which has never been under state control.

by Martín Gambarotta

The lockdown has a stifling effect on the hearts and minds of the population and there’s still winter to slog through.

POLITICS & THE PANDEMIC

Lockdown limbo

06-06-2020 09:32 Coronavirus has put everyday life, or the remnants of it, in a loop. Home is where the office lies.

by Martín Gambarotta

Complainers will complain.

POLITICS & THE PANDEMIC

Lockdown: complainers will complain

30-05-2020 09:16 The debt drama will escalate if the talks fail to make progress and some bondholders decide to accelerate the situation, which could see them eventually taking the republic to court in the middle of a pandemic that is crippling for the economy.

by Martín Gambarotta

Buenos Aires, City and Province, Kicillof and Rodriguez Larreta.

PANDEMIC POLITICS

Buenos Aires versus Buenos Aires

23-05-2020 09:21 Horacio Rodríguez Larreta is under pressure because he needs to control the epidemic in the metropolis. Otherwise his reputation could be tarnished – possibly even ruined.

by Martín Gambarotta

Most leaders holding office have had no choice but to close ranks behind Fernández.

PANDEMIC PONDERINGS

Still quarantined after all these days

16-05-2020 08:00 If the funds are playing the instability game to trigger a political crisis, it’s not happening right here and now. Most of the centre-right opposition leaders holding office have had no choice but to close ranks behind Fernández, who is extremely popular according to polls.

by Martín Gambarotta

The incessant prodding for a laxer quarantine trumpeted by part of the mainstream media.

ARGENTINA'S DEBT WOES

Debt-xit time

09-05-2020 10:01 The incessant prodding for a laxer quarantine, trumpeted by part of the mainstream media, is peppered by the pot-banging cacerolazo protests.

by Martín Gambarotta

Opposition and government with masks arguing? One thing yellow., one thing blue?.

Politics in the pandemic

Quarantine quarrels

02-05-2020 09:19 The president has reflexes but he often pauses before making a decision, creating a momentary vacuum that leaves room for misinformation to viralise.

by Martín Gambarotta

Argentina is staring default in the face once again. The country has been here before, but never with the world economy cracking up in the middle of a pandemic.

ARGENTINA’S DEBT WOES

Pay no more

25-04-2020 11:57 Argentina is staring default in the face once again. The country has been here before, but never with the world economy cracking up in the middle of a pandemic.

by Martín Gambarotta

There are no real signs of unrest. Most of the population is donning face masks and according to the government, those who are out and about are carrying out essential tasks with the required permits.

CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

Face mask days

18-04-2020 10:47 Argentina’s coronavirus quarantine has been extended until April 26 and the use of facemasks is now compulsory in many parts of the country, including Buenos Aires City.

by Martín Gambarotta

Guzmán announced Monday that bond payments worth more than US$8 billion issued under Argentine law, due this year, will now be postponed until 2021.

A WEEK IN THE PANDEMIC

A long-haul plight

11-04-2020 10:28 Is anybody paying attention to Argentina’s debt drama with the entire world economy hurting so badly from a virus?

by Martín Gambarotta

Is conflict coming back? There are signs – one this week was the decision by the construction arm of steel giant Techint to terminate the contract of 1,400 construction workers.

LA GRIETA Y LA PANDEMIA

Between a Rocca and a hard place

04-04-2020 09:54 The trade unions still consider themselves to be the backbone of Peronism and Fernández is leaning heavily on the labour machine to pull through the crisis.

by Martín Gambarotta

The president is scoring high approval ratings right now. But more difficult times lie ahead.

LIFE IN THE PANDEMIC

Alberto the anchorman

28-03-2020 11:25 With millions staying at home, watching television is now a national sport once again, and the president has turned himself into the anchorman of an anxious nation.

by Martín Gambarotta

The coronavirus emergency has wiped out practically all other political issues here.

ON THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

Emergency on Planet Earth (that includes Argentina)

21-03-2020 08:34 The ultimate fear in Argentina, apart from the health consequences, is that a lockdown will definitively break the back of an economy that was already bleeding badly and burdened with debt.

by Martín Gambarotta

What the virus can alter is Argentina’s economic outlook for 2020, just when a new Peronist government was trying to jumpstart the economy. Winter in Argentina could bring a brasher coronavirus panic that could prompt further economic misery.

A WEEK IN ARGENTINA

Argentina’s viral blues

14-03-2020 08:58 The country’s debt drama will now play out as the coronavirus spreads. Still a virus will not change the fact that Argentina is running out of money.

by Martín Gambarotta

The president chose not to directly pick a fight with the farmers during his congressional address. But effectively soybean export duties have been increased from 30 percent to 33 percent.

March is the most crucial month

March is the most crucial month

07-03-2020 13:42 State television coverage showed that there is a nascent presidential inner circle without any apparent ties to the vote-getting Kirchnerite wing of the coalition commanded by Vice-President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

by Martín Gambarotta

Guzmán has ruled out deploying extreme austerity to meet the fiscal targets that would allow the country to immediately pay down debt, but the government’s recent decision to scrap index-linked pension hikes will effectively save it money, as favoured by the IMF.

DEBT RESTRUCTURING

Guzmán’s long March

29-02-2020 08:56 Argentina’s president is trying to sort out the country’s debt problems politically. Still, in the end, it will all be about money – the success of the ‘gently does it’ approach hinges on the bondholders accepting a considerable haircut.

by Martín Gambarotta

The IMF said this week that Argentina's debt burden is unsustainable.

THE IMF AND ARGENTINA

With the IMF on our side...

22-02-2020 12:57 The bondholders still don’t know what kind of a haircut they will be asked to suffer but Guzmán is trying to meet a March 31 deadline. A long next month lies ahead.

by Martín Gambarotta

Will the private bondholders get the message? Will the hedge funds oblige and yield? It doesn’t look like it.

DEBT RESTRUCTURING

Mission: impossible (to pay debt)

15-02-2020 11:09 The government’s biggest challenge is to buy time without defaulting on its humongous debt. Will the private bondholders get the message? Will the hedge funds oblige and yield?

by Martín Gambarotta

The new Argentine diplomats are doing their work. But the debt battlefield is far grittier right now for the republic’s lieutenants.

NEW ERA IN ARGENTINA

All is not quiet on the debt restructuring front

08-02-2020 10:15 Debt is Argentina’s disease. President Alberto Fernández, a Peronist, has said that the nation is now in “intensive care” treatment for its debt addiction. The president has also likened trying to restructure Argentina’s mammoth debt to playing poker with the good fellas. You try pulling a convincing poker face while in intensive care without your cards falling to the ground.

by Martín Gambarotta

On Wednesday the Chamber of Deputies approved a bill granting Economy Minister Martín Guzmán the prerogative to renegotiate Argentina’s mammoth debt.

NEW ERA IN ARGENTINA

The long and winding debt

01-02-2020 08:40 Despite the constant chestthumping in the media, the warring factions united to approve Guzmán’s bill. At least the minister now has a card in his pocket that he can show the world whenever he feels like it.

by Martín Gambarotta

Guzmán’s approach is to tread carefully and show the kind of manners that global financiers can relate to.

NEW ERA IN ARGENTINA

Boy, you’re going to carry that debt a long time

25-01-2020 10:04 Keeping calm and carrying on when you owe the world billions is all very well, but the markets tend to get hysterical when financial deadlines near. At some point, Martín Guzmán will have to make an offer.

by Martín Gambarotta

Alberto Fernandez and Axel Kicillof as Simon&Garfunkel.

NEW ERA

Hello default my old friend

18-01-2020 10:28 Kicillof has set the stage. But soon Alberto Fernández and Guzmán will be the leading actors. Or is this just Kicillof’s play?

by Martín Gambarotta

Time tells many things. Time will tell who won the taxincrease argument in Buenos Aires Province, the nation’s biggest voting district where President Alberto Fernández thrashed Macri last year.

NEW ERA IN ARGENTINA

Kicillof in the land of overkill

11-01-2020 08:41 The next 180 days will not be a honeymoon. But they will not be the instant marital hell for the new government that the opposition is imagining either.

by Martín Gambarotta

Tha tax hikes revealed that part of the press is all too eager to target Kicillof, who has the backing of the Kirchnerite wing of the ruling coalition and the task of delivering to its electoral base in Greater Buenos Aires.

POLITICS & LABOUR

Happy this is not an election year

04-01-2020 07:05 The interaction between President Fernández and Governor Kicillof will be watched closely. The ruling party can’t afford to see its popularity drop in its giant bastion before its federal fiscal policies have a chance to kick in.

by Martín Gambarotta

Anything less than a decade in power will be seen as failure by the Peronists, who have regained power only four years after losing it.

NEW ERA IN ARGENTINA

Goodbye gradual-ism

21-12-2019 08:50 Macri's ‘gradual-ism’ didn’t work. Marci gradually lost popularity until he gradually lost the election.

by Martín Gambarotta

Will Guzmán, who during a press conference on Wednesday was fiercely critical of Macri’s neoliberal policies, manage to save the day? Possibly.

NEW ERA IN ARGENTINA

Guzmán, not Superman

14-12-2019 10:32 Argentina has always had a love-hate relationship with its economy ministers. There is this undying hope that a sensational economist will come one day to save the nation from its financial doom.

by Martín Gambarotta

Macri avoided political humiliation by garnering over 10 million votes on October 27. But he leaves behind a rocketing inflation rate, rising poverty and unemployment.

TRANSITION 2019

Hasta la vista, Macri

07-12-2019 10:11 The critics, by voicing their complaints so early against the new government, risk overkill. Alberto Fernández’s honeymoon will be short. But this early searing criticism is like filing for divorce before getting married.

by Martín Gambarotta

Alberto Fernández is out there for everybody to see. So where exactly is Fernández de Kirchner? Apparently she is busy trying to control Congress.

TRANSITION 2019

To December 10 – and beyond

30-11-2019 11:17 Fernández de Kirchner, before she won the presidency in 2007, cut her teeth for years as a parliamentarian. Now she is back in the house she knows best.

by Martín Gambarotta

Nestor Kirchner and Alberto Fernandez.

TRANSITION 2019

In Néstor’s footsteps

23-11-2019 11:01 Argentina has a history of presidents who campaigned doing one thing and then ended up doing another. Some observers say the same thing may happen with Fernández.

by Martín Gambarotta

Bolivia has a history of poverty and struggles. But it is rich in lithium and natural gas.

TRANSITION 2019

Bolivia boils over

16-11-2019 12:50 Argentina’s economic situation is extremely difficult. But the national conversation is now about the wider region. Out on the streets, everybody is an expert on Bolivia’s Constitution.

by Martín Gambarotta

The real centre-right protagonist will most likely be Rodríguez Larreta who will be mayor once again and have an office, meaning that he will get to interact on a daily basis with the new president and the new incoming governor of Buenos Aires Province, leftist economist Axel Kicillof.

ELECTION 2019

Transition tensions

09-11-2019 10:36 Is the Cabinet chief already dreaming of a Macri comeback? Judging by the looks on the faces of Rodríguez Larreta and Vidal, the Cabinet chief is delusional.

by Martín Gambarotta

The president was defeated 48 percent to 40 percent by Alberto Fernández, the candidate leading a united left-leaning Peronist front.

ELECTION 2019

The people fire Macri (with a pat on the back)

02-11-2019 11:44 Depending on how you choose to see it, Macri is either the first president to lose a reelection bid or the first non-Peronist president to fulfill his mandate since 1930.

by Martín Gambarotta

Argentina is just hours away of presidential election.

ELECTION 2019

Argentina votes as Latin America burns

26-10-2019 09:57 Argentina will hold its presidential election tomorrow. Time ticks slowly when there’s a crisis, but still it ticks. The day will arrive.

by Martín Gambarotta

Macri questioned Alberto's use of his pointing finger.

ELECTION 2019

Impact of debate is debatable

19-10-2019 12:07 Presidential debates regulated by law are a first in Argentina. They also drag the public back into the living rooms to partake in another dying practice: watching television

by Martín Gambarotta

There is no denying that Macri will not go out with a whimper, rather by whipping up one hell of a fuss.

ELECTION 2019

Macri’s magical mystery tour

12-10-2019 09:30 The backdrop to this chest-thumping is that Macri’s coalition appears to be quietly disintegrating backstage in a haze of cloak and dagger intrigue.

by Martín Gambarotta

At times Macri looks as if he’s hooked on being a candidate. But in reality he is the president.

ELECTION 2019

It ain’t over ’til it’s over

05-10-2019 09:56 Sergio Massa, a prominent member of the Peronist front, quipped that the president has embarked on a “farewell tour.”

by Martín Gambarotta

The waiting game

Election 2019

The waiting game

28-09-2019 04:09 Executives in the private sector can barge their way into meetings and demand solutions. But politicians looking like lame ducks are waved back to the waiting room.

by Martín Gambarotta

President Macri and his wife, Juliana Awada.

ELECTION 2019

Argentina: running out of metaphors

21-09-2019 09:25 rgentina is the Titanic, to some. To others, Argentina is a cow with not enough milk to feed its calves. Metaphors abound when solutions are scarce.

by Martín Gambarotta

The hunger debate.

ELECTION 2019

The hunger debate

13-09-2019 23:41 Alberto Fernández’s words fill a vacuum. At times Macri is absent and seems to have delegated power almost entirely to his lieutenants.

by Martín Gambarotta

Show me the money

Election 2019

Show me the money

07-09-2019 00:52 Hernán Lacunza, meanwhile, has declared that the measures to appease jittery savers “are working” and the exodus of deposits is slowing down.

by Martín Gambarotta

My name is bond, ‘reprofiled’ bond.

Election 2019

My name is bond, 'reprofiled' bond

31-08-2019 00:37 When volatile Argentina shudders, its peso currency is thumped. The dollar deposit drain, a hushed issue that nobody wants to talk about in the open, is not slowing down.

by Martín Gambarotta

Macri's last attempt to save the economy.

ELECTION 2019

Déjà vu with Dujovne: so many ministers, so little joy

24-08-2019 09:47 Argentina has packed in so many officials with wonder recipes into three decades that the broth appears to have been spoilt for good.

by Martín Gambarotta