MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Kicillof blames Milei for writing himself off from battle against dengue

Milei's health strategy “seems like a joke, but it is very serious,” Argentina's main opposition leader stressed

Buenos Aires province governor Axel Kicillof accused Argentine President Javier Milei of writing himself off the country's plight with dengue fever and leaving it all up to the different jurisdictions. Kicillof, a political figure akin to Kirchnerism and arguably the most prominent opposition leader these days, said the federal government behaved as one of a “deserting and absent national State.” The Libertarian administration has no State strategy to tackle the problem, he also argued.

“It seems like a joke, but it is very serious. And very serious. A president inspired by an ideology or a libertarian liberal creed, anarcho-capitalist, from the Austrian School of the 19th century that was never applied anywhere, decides to completely fade away in the face of the most serious Dengue epidemic in history,” Kicillof wrote on X.

He also claimed that President Milei “maintains that he is going to render the provinces bankrupt because they do not approve his unconstitutional [emergency decree] DNU and the destructive laws that his Government did not even write.”

The Governor also condemned the mounting layoffs of federal State workers citing budgetary constraints. “With Milei as president, the Government is only present to lay off workers, raise tariffs, put a ceiling on salaries, and defend privileges,” Kicillof insisted.

He also denounced the presence of federal security forces in state agency buildings to quash any protest. ”We woke up with the Conicet and other public agencies almost militarized. We saw today (Thursday) a sad and cruel show that will remain in our memory as one of the most representative images of this dark time,“ he stressed while extending his condolences to the sacked workers.

”Our commitment is to do everything in our power to protect the rights of the people of Buenos Aires and to mitigate Milei's aggression on the rights and daily life of families,“ Cristina Fernández de Kirchner's former Economy Minister also noted.

Buenos Aires Health Minister Nicolás Kreplak also pointed out that a national government inaugurated on Dec. 10 knowing it would have to face dengue, cannot lack a strategic plan. ”What role did the national health portfolio play? None. It issued a communiqué saying things that I do not agree with, but there was no work done in this regard,” Kreplak underlined.

In the province of Buenos Aires alone there have been 46,035 positive cases of dengue this season including 31 deaths, in addition to more than 14,000 patients still under study.