Friday, August 10, 2018

Nestor Kirchner Legacy


Kirchner was a self-made lawyer in Santa Cruz, the windswept Patagonian province. When he won the Peronist party's candidacy, he was already a very rich man. Once in power, he imposed quotas "aportes" on each Ministry, which had to be delivered in dollars (cash only) to the Government House. The cash had to be counted and signed by his accountants and delivered in handbags, three times a week. Vicepresident Boudou was his controller, he too got very rich. The cash was then transferred to secret accounts in Seychelles and other islands. Another source of income was Techint, Argentina's largest building company. Its Venezuelan filial was nationalized by Maduro and the compensation was channeled to Kirchner in 100,000 dollar monthly payments. Techint says that they never paid anything to Kirchner, and the prove is that they were never awarded any public project under Kirchner.

When Nestor suddenly died, his widow inherited this well oiled "public monies collecting machinery" and the fattening of the family fortune. The Kirchner children are, apparently, not up to their parents, so there will no Kirchner dynasty. Although corruption was always a feature of Argentina's government, there was never such a systematic plunder as organized by the talented Nestor Kirchner.  

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