Validity of a commitment by the National Project and People

Interview with Congressman FPLV - Missions

Juan Manuel Irrazábal

It has been almost seven years since the start of the general administration of the country most successful in recent decades, growing without interruption since 2003 at rates averaging 7 to 8 percent annually. You need to go far back in history to find a period of growth as vigorous and as extended in time which in turn has been accompanied by so many advances in the social field.

And make no mistake: such an increase in the volume of domestic production, thereby creating wealth and jobs, was not merely the result of favorable external conditions or a natural rebound in activity after the tremendous crisis that bequeathed ten years of rampant neoliberalism, but the logical consequence of a set of concrete policies, pursued with firmness and conviction, whose axis is the production, work and interest of all Argentines.

This way of managing the national economy showed its ability to cope with external shocks in the recent international financial crisis. According to a Ministry of Labor's Office, while from the beginning of the crisis in the entire world economy grew 50% unemployment in our country this indicator increased by one third of that amount, 16%. Moreover, the reduction in employment during the international crisis was lower than that observed in contractionary phases 1998, 2001 and 2002.

We believe that the cornerstone of this production model is the recovery of state and politics for all Argentines. A proactive state, which is no longer a passive spectator of trade in goods and services but who engages and participates in strategy development through the use of policy instruments. A state that reaffirms their decision-making on matters within its competence, which is strengthened independently from international financial centers and autonomy of the internal power groups.

Along with the growth of output and employment, we conduct a real democratization project, which is not exhausted by the stubborn defense of human rights, truth and justice but aims above all to give a voice and skills to disadvantaged by expanding the sources of information, better income distribution and inclusion policies and improvement of living conditions. This has resulted in increased public investment in education, health and transportation, universal protection of children, retirement phones, raising the minimum wage system, media and football for all and a number of measures were daily marking this Peronist truly heading.

Work for the benefit of the popular sectors implies from the political standpoint to decisively counter the interests of concentrated sectors of the economy and the factors established power, groups and corporations who are accustomed to using and abusing the state in its own benefit whatever form or color management policy and push their agenda in the public thanks to their control over the positioning device and media opportunist leaders and political groups in the population whose plight would otherwise be very small and marginal .

Thus, the combined political opposition today against this national model and popular republicanism of a formal and empty right that never tires of defending the recipes around the world led to disaster, with the maximalism of a screaming child left looking at the navel and is inclined to the personal outshine on the construction of agreement about common goals. Only show talent and dedication to impede the initiatives of the ruling, arguing noble reason to limit the administration's reformist passion, but may be noted among so destructive criticism or some novel idea that the ruling has not already taken into account.

We are clear that what is at stake for the future is a political project of production, labor and social inclusion, and that men and women who embody it today bear responsibility for ensuring the continuity. This is our commitment.

Buenos Aires, February 25, 2010