The meeting held by Argentina’s President Alberto Fernandez, with the Chilean opposition – where he told them to settle “their differences in regaining power” – generated criticism in officialism and an opposition sector, who criticized the Transandino leader being involved in local politics.
The former minister of the Concertación, Carlos Ominami, referred to this in an interview with the newspaper La Tercera: “At all, it is typical of a globalized and progressive world that believes in integration. It does not seem to me that there has been interference and even more, I would say that here there is ignorance and criticism of some leaders such as Heraldo Muñoz (PPD) or Ricardo Lagos Weber (PPD), who if they had participated would not have issued the judgments they issued. And, on the right, there’s a tremendous double standard. It is a matter of seeing President Piñera’s speech in Argentina’s presidential campaign, supporting Macri, none of us claimed that.”
Regarding the criticisms he made about this Heraldo Muñoz meeting, Ominami said that “clearly there was ignorance. I have a great appreciation for Heraldo, but I also have differences with him and I am struck that in general those who expressed criticism on this occasion are the same ones who did not want to subscribe and who criticized when we from Chile supported President Lula Da Silva, who was being the subject of political persecution.”
“It is true that there is an issue with the Presidency, but presidents are also political leaders and are people who have certain conductions. One may have a critical judgment on the Chilean right, but have great relations with President Piñera. I feel like there’s some hypocrisy, it’s better to honest things and I feel that telling an opposition that you have to join is a complete no-brainer. Saying something like that is totally common sense and there’s a bad intention when you’re looking to turn this into an incident,” he added, justifying the meeting.
