beyondbrics

Cristina Fernández, Argentina’s president, faces surgery on Wednesday which doctors say should nip her early-stage thyroid cancer in the bud.

What the three-hour surgery is also expected to do is give a fresh fillip to the popularity of the Argentine leader, who won a landslide re-election victory in October and has maintained high ratings, despite controversial recent measures such as a bid to stem rampant capital flight via foreign exchange controls.

According to this poll published last month, four days before the routine exam which revealed she had a cancerous tumour, Fernández’s popularity was 67 per cent – well above the 54 per cent she secured in the October elections. After the op, the only way is up, at least initially, pollsters say.

With the president’s papillary thyroid carcinoma at an early stage – the government says it has not metastasised or spread to her lymph nodes; she is not expected to need chemotherapy; and the cancer has a high survival rate – the big question is: how long will the kid-glove treatment last?

As the president, who turns 59 next month, was preparing to go into the Hospital Austral, a private clinic just north of the capital, the federal government on Tuesday signed over control of the Buenos Aires metro system to the city government – a move that is set to herald (although perhaps not immediately) a hefty increase to the current $0.26 flat fare.

Many Argentines will also return from their summer holidays to much higher electricity and gas bills as the government withdraws subsidies that have kept utilities charges artificially low for almost a decade in a country where inflation remains stubbornly high, at around 22 per cent.

Meanwhile, economic growth will dive to an estimated 4 per cent or so this year – still a level many developed economies would kill for, but a huge slowdown for the Argentine economy which has been powering ahead on consumer demand.

As middle-class families tighten their belts to face their higher bills, inflation, higher private health and education costs and the usual hike in back-to-school materials in March, consumer spending is likely now to come under pressure. At the same time, the government is seeking to keep a lid on wage demands in collective bargaining process which dominates the first months of every year.

Fernández may not just be glad of the wellwishers who have mounted a vigil outside the Hospital Austral with get-well messages. She may need big support as her measures seeking to rein in a bit of the government’s profligate spending start to kick in.

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