Lawmakers in the opposition reacted to President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s three-hour speech and said her statements regarding the recent Once railway tragedy were “regrettable” and “disappointing,” but praised her decision to add more flights to the Malvinas Islands.
After her address to Congress on Thursday, the head of the UCR caucus Ricardo Gil Lavedra said he thought her decision to reinstate the flight route between Buenos Aires and the Malvinas was “correct.”
However, he regretted that when she referred to the recent train accident in Once, she failed to mention that “no one has checked on the state of these trains in all these years.”
From an institutional point of view, he thought her speech was “improvised and void of content.”
Socialist senator Rubén Guistiniani said her statements regarding the Once tragedy were “disappointing” and questioned that “she still hasn’t decided to change the perverse and corrupt system working within the railway business.”
“There were basically no big announcements,” he said, and considered that an amendment to the Central Bank Charter alone is not enough unless Congress passes new legislation aiming financial organizations.
He later said that having Aerolíneas Argentinas fly to the Malvinas Islands is “a good decision.”
Civic Coalition lawmaker and senator Alfonso Prat Gay and María Eugenia Estenssoro pointed out that Fernández “never referred to the victims of the Once tragedy or their families, didn’t acknowledge the hike in utilities and congratulated herself using false INDEC figures.”
They did support, however, “her peaceful demand to discuss the Malvinas sovereignty issue” and demanded “a diplomatic approach in accordance to her speech.”
But the head of the Proyecto Sur party, Fernando Solanas assured that the President “has chosen the wrong path” in trying to regain the trust of the islanders. “She doesn’t want to abolish the London and Madrid agreements, but doesn’t enforce Bill 26.659, which was passed by both houses unanimously.”
“Her speech had some ups and downs and presents a false reality,” he said, adding “she never revealed the true destination for the subsidies, which represents a great chain of corruption,” he said.
PRO lawmaker Gabriela Michetti also weighted in after the President’s speech.
“Today we would have liked to listen to a President who promised $5.2 billion pesos in investment coming from the National Government that we never got. We would have liked to listen to her inviting the City Mayor to a meeting in order to begin a real, serious and responsible process of joint work that allows us to finally be able to make the transfer of the subway management,” she concluded.
Source: Buenos Aires Herald