In his first public appearance since being elected the country's next president, Frente de Todos leader Alberto Fernández vowed Tuesday morning that his government would "roll up our sleeves so that no-one else goes hungry in Argentina."
The former Cabinet chief, who won election on Sunday in the first round by defeating President Mauricio Macri, visited Tucumán to attend Juan Luis Manzur's swearing-in for a second term as the province's governor, keeping a promise he made previously.
Speaking during the ceremony in San Miguel de Tucumán, Fernández said he work to "make Argentina federal," adding that his remarks "were not going to be a speech," but a "reality."
"The future began on Sunday," he told the crowd, vowing that "no-one else goes hungry in Argentina."
The Frente de Todos then promised the nation's provincial governors that he would with them to put the country back on the right path.
From December 10, "Argentina begins to be governed by a president and 24 governors," he added, a "federal country that has not yet been built."
He admitted it wouldn't be easy, however.
"The current scenario seems difficult, and it is," he declared, going on to criticise the Macri administration.
"One does not really know if their policies were really driven by conviction, but there were many who warned that they were going to lead onto this reality. Or if maybe it the policies were improvised," he added. "The truth is that Argentina today is an Argentina with many problems."
Fernández then vowed to improve healthcare and education in Argentina, saying they had been "neglected" and "mistreated."
"There are basic institutions that are not working as well as they need to," said the president-elect, saying Argentines needed to recover "rights" that had been lost.
"The greatest damage they did was to condemn four out of ten Argentines to poverty, one in two children under 14 years old," he fired, criticising the policies adopted by the Macri government.
Governors and labour leaders
The event was attended by a host of governors from the northern provinces, trade union figures, businessmen, national lawmakers and mayors from Buenos Aires Province. Representatives from the UIA and the CGT union groups were among those in attendance. The Clarín daily observed that many of them were Peronist, not Kirchnerite, figures.
In his speech, the governor said that "from now on, we are walking in tune with the State, together with the new president of the Argentine Republic."
Manzur, who served as health minister under former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, was one of three governors present at the Frente de Todos election night rally in Chacarita on Sunday, along with Gustavo Bordet (Entre Ríos) and Sergio Uñac (San Juan).
"This Sunday's election is another very important signal. It is the confirmation of the organisational system that we have chosen to live in [as a] society," Manzur concluded in his speech.
The president-elect spoke again later in the day from a balcony of the provincial government's headquarters, saying that was "more necessary than ever to put aside disagreements."
"Let's not ask them where they come from, let's ask them where they want to go, and if they want to reach the same destiny of ours," he added. "We are not building a front of us, we are building a front for everyone."
– TIMES/PERFIL/NA
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