Mauricio Macri's tenure as the president of Argentina began on 10 December 2015, and ended on 10 December 2019. Macri, a member of the Republican Proposal, took office after defeating the Justicialist candidate, Daniel Scioli, in the 2015 general election. He is Argentina's first democratically elected non-Radical or Peronist president since 1916. Macri unsuccessfully sought re-election in the 2019 general election, losing to Alberto Fernández and becoming the first incumbent president in Argentina and South America's history to be unseated by a challenger and not reach a second term.Macri has lost, by Nicolás Tereschuk 10-28-2019, Infobae Newspaper
President-elect He promised to reduce inflation, improve conditions for business, and cease the international alignment with Venezuela and Iran. Macri has announced an infrastructure development strategy named Plan Belgrano (after Manuel Belgrano), a plan aimed at building infrastructure and encouraging industry development in ten of Argentina's northern provinces, which have historically lagged behind the rest of the country in these areas. The plan includes a proposed investment of equivalent to 16 billion United States dollars over the course of 10 years, along with an "historical reconstruction fund" of 50 billion pesos to be used in 4 years. Other objectives of the plan include the provision of housing for some 250,000 families, and the construction of 1400 child care centers.
Macri announced the full composition of his cabinet on 25 November 2015, some two weeks before he was due to take office.
Inauguration
Macri took office on 10 December 2015. He began the ceremony starting from his apartment in the neighborhood of Recoleta at the corner of Avenida del Libertador and Cavia at 11:00 pm to the National Congress of Argentina with his wife Juliana Awada and his youngest daughter of 4 years old, through the Casa Rosada and the Plaza de Mayo. At 11:41 he entered the room where the Legislature was, taking an oath after the Vice President Gabriela Michetti. Then he delivered a speech of 27 minutes in which he pledged his "support for an independent judiciary, fight corruption and drug trafficking, the internal union of Argentina, universal social protection, create a 21st-century style of education and that everyone can have a roof, water and sewer". Also greeted his competitors during the presidential elections.
Later he went to the Casa Rosada, where he received the presidential attributes in the White Hall of the hands of the Temporary President of the Senate, Federico Pinedo, accompanied by Vice President Gabriela Michetti, president of the Chamber of Deputies Emilio Monzó and President of the Supreme Court Ricardo Lorenzetti. Minutes later came the historic balcony where thousands of people waited in the Plaza de Mayo, expressing his hope that "the Argentines can live better, starting a wonderful time for our country, always telling the truth, being honest, showing the problems " and calling " the Argentines to accompany management and alerting when he mistake".
After being anointed President, he gave a reception at the San Martín Palace of Argentina Foreign Ministry to all the heads of state present: Michelle Bachelet from Chile, Horacio Cartes from Paraguay, Juan Manuel Santos from Colombia, Rafael Correa from Ecuador, Evo Morales from Bolivia, Dilma Rousseff from Brazil, and representatives of other countries attending his inauguration.
Cabinet Ministries Ministry Minister Party Start End Cabinet Chief Republican Proposal Minister of the Interior, Public Works and Housing MID Minister of Foreign Affairs and Worship Radical Civic Union Independent Minister of Defense Julio Martínez Radical Civic Union Minister of the Treasury Civic Coalition ARI Radical Civic Union Republican Proposal Minister of Finances Minister of Production and Labour Dante Sica Minister of Tourism Radical Civic Union Minister of Modernization Andrés Ibarra Republican Proposal Minister of Justice and Human Rights Independent Minister of Labour, Employmentand Social Security Republican Proposal Minister of Health Adolfo Rubinstein Radical Civic Union Minister of Health and Social Development Republican Proposal Minister of Education, Culture,Science and Technology Minister of Science, Technologyand Productive Innovation Independent Minister of Agriculture, Livestock,Fisheries and Food Radical Civic Union Luis Miguel Etchevehere Independent Minister of Security Republican Proposal Minister of Transport Minister of the Environmentand Sustainable Development Minister of Energy Independent Javier Iguacel Republican Proposal Minister of Culture Minister of Communications Radical Civic Union
Presidential secretariats Ministry Minister Party Start End General Secretary Republican Proposal Legal and Technical Secretary Pablo Clusellas Secretary of Comprehensive Policies on Drugs Roberto Moro Justicialist Party
Domestic affairs Economic policy
One of the first changes to economic policy from the Macri administration, just seven days after he had taken office, was to remove the capital controls that had been in place for four consecutive years. The move signified a 30% devaluation of the peso, and was met with both criticism and praise.
The Macri's administration eliminated export taxes on agricultural products (wheat, corn, sunflower, meat and fish), minerals (metallic and non-metallic) and certain industrial products; while it promised to lower the tariff on soy 5% every year.
For the next year, he eliminated the Advance Affidavits of Importation (an import control program) and extended Careful Pricing (a price control program) for six months.
Since 2016, Macri began the removal of energy subsidies (for electricity, gas and water) and transport subsidies (for bus, train and subway), which caused a huge increase in prices. He avoided to use a shock therapy and introduced the changes gradually.
On 19 January, Macri attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland with Sergio Massa and part of his cabinet looking for investments. He had meetings with various business representatives, politicians and journalists. Some of them were US Vice President Joe Biden, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron, the founder of Virgin Group Richard Branson, CEO of Google Eric Schmidt, the Queen of the Netherlands, President and CEO Coca-Cola, Muhtar Kent among others. It was the first time that Argentina participates since 2003. The last president was Eduardo Duhalde.
Macri wanted to negotiate with holdouts and end the default to return to the international capital markets. Argentina faced a court hearing in New York City on 13 April. The court upheld judge Thomas P. Griesa's ruling and allowed Argentina to pay the 2005 and 2010 bondholders. The payment, made with a bond sale, was the end of the Argentine default.
One of Macri's promises during the campaign was the elimination of Income tax for workers. Macri had not fulfilled his promise, and it was not in the government's plan to eliminate the Income tax in the future either.Macri: "Los trabajadores no van a pagar impuesto a las Ganancias": INCUMPLIDA (Macri – fulfilled and unfulfilled promises) 12-10-2017 Chequeado.com
Political intervention in the INDEC figures ended, and the IMF declared in November 2016 that Argentine statistics were again in accordance with international standards.
Among the most notorious vulnerabilities of the administration was an extremely high inflation rate: it was 40% in 2016 (while the Central Bank expected an inflation rate of 17% for 2017, 10% for 2018 and 5% for 2019).Macri's election success is no cure-all for Argentina's structural issues 17 November 2017, Euromoney
Other vulnerabilities included the unemployment rate close to 9%, as well as the sharp rise in the current-account deficit, which is likely to be around 3% to 4% of GDP in 2018 thanks to an over-valued currency.
Between 2017 and 2018 the government cut import tariffs on capital goods and eliminated tariffs on the importation of technology products to encourage investment.
The deregulation area allowed the incorporation of low cost airlines, such as JetSmart, Norwegian and Flybondi.
Inflation continued to be a problem, with a rate of 25% in 2017, second only to Venezuela in South America and the highest rate in the G20. On 28 December, the Central Bank of Argentina together with the Treasury announced a change of the inflation target. This was seen by the market as a relaxation of the monetary policy. They attempted to reduce it to 15%, but these efforts failed.
The international trade, which had a surplus in the previous year, gave a deficit. A drought reduced the production of soy, the country's principal export, ranking among the world's worst natural disasters in 2018.
The Federal Reserve of the United States increased interest rates from 0.25% to 1.75% and then 2%. This caused investors to return to the United States, leaving emerging markets. The effect, a raise in the price of the United States dollar, was modest in most countries, but it was felt particularly strongly in Argentina, Brazil and Turkey.
Those factors led to a monetary crisis. The interest rate increased to 60%, but could not keep the price of the US dollar.
Macri announced on 8 May that Argentina would seek a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The loan was $57bn, and the country pledged to reduce inflation and public spending.
For 2019, the government accelerated the austerity plans, with less expenses and more taxes, to completely remove the fiscal deficit.
The inflation rate was 53.8%, the highest in the country in 28 years.
Human rights Human rights organizations had aligned themselves with the governments of both Néstor and Cristina Kirchner, even in topics unrelated to human rights, and often worked as their spokesmen. They continued this role after 2015, when Macri defeated the Kirchnerite candidate in the presidential elections,Novaro, pp. 16–19 which undermined the legitimacy of the organizations in Argentine society.Novaro, p. 21 Macri maintained a distant relation with those organizations, and did not seek their support, but did not openly confront them. They kept their funding and the institutions under their control, and the trials of military personnel for crimes in the Dirty War (1974–1983) continued. Nevertheless, the organizations continued their opposition to Macri.Novaro, p. 26 His cabinet was divided on an approach to take: whether to directly confront the organizations and remove their state financing, or to take an active role in their activities and replace their leaders with less politically motivated figures.Novaro, pp. 30–31 The general policy, however, was to ignore the disputes and focus the activities of the government towards more pressing matters, such as the economy.Novaro, p. 29
The government modified the public holiday for the Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice, which makes reference to the 1976 Argentine coup d'état, to allow it to be celebrated on a movable date. This ruling was met with huge criticism. The ruling was reverted some days later, and the holiday was kept at the fixed date of 24 March.
Social issues