July 20, 2007 (LPAC)--Causing heartburn in London and New York, Argentine First Lady and Sen. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner officially launched her campaign for the October 28 Argentine Presidential elections with a vow to continue the "industrialist" economic model her husband has defined. The announcement was made July 19 before a 2,000-person audience in La Plata, including her husband President Nestor Kirchner, his cabinet, national governors and mayors.

Speaking as the candidate of the Victory Front, Sen. Fernandez stated that the lives of Argentines "are made or broken" by the economy, and counterposed the current model of social inclusion, strong growth of reserves, and "industrialist profile" to the neoliberal model of the 1990s, "in which millions were forced out of the productive system."

It is possible, Sen. Fernandez said, to have an economy based on robust agricultural production as well as reindustrialization, and this is the model that will be deepened. Argentina has a "rich history" to draw on, such that the business class, the labor movement, and the State can cooperate in setting medium and long-term development goals. But, she warned, the country needs "intelligent businessmen," because there are some "who only know how to count and defend bubble economies that are unsustainable over time."

The Argentine First Lady also underscored that during the last four years, President Kirchner has succeeded in "reconstituting the decision-making power of the democratic State," and the authority of the President, as opposed to previous Presidents who "couldn't or didn't want to represent the interests of the whole... and due either to defection or corruption, voted the way the International Monetary Fund asked them to." As the next Argentine President, she said, "we shall continue in the same direction, avoiding those violent shifts of past decades that left us on the brink of social extinction."