Vice-President Julio Cobos said the government should make changes in the Cabinet in a move to defuse increasing tensions between its members after the defeat of the ruling Peronist party in the midterm elections.

"Ministers work as fuses, defusing tension, and now is seems to be a good time to replace them," said the Vice-President, who is at loggerheads with the rest of the Kirchner administration after he sided with the farmers in a key vote in Congress last year.

Cobos told reporters at a local radio station that the government's performance in the vote "was not good at all," and said he "expects changes in the Cabinet." On Monday, one day after the elections, Health Minister Graciela Ocaña resigned to her post and was replaced by the lieutenant-governor of the Peronist province of Tucumán, Juan Mazur.

"It would have been wise from the President to reckon that the elections weren't positive for the government. It would have been a good chance to call other parties to start dialogue," added the Vice-President, a Radical who has already said he is planning to run for the presidency in 2011.

The governor of Chaco province, Jorge Capitanich is encouraging the Peronist party to "open" and allow dissident voices in a move to revitalize the party, which has been hammered an electoral defeat on Sunday.

"We should encourage dialogue from all the sectors within the Peronism," said the Kirchnerite governor after a meeting with the recently appointed chairman of the Peronists, Buenos Aires Governor Daniel Scioli in the City.

As an increasing number of voices within the party founded by former president Juan Perón are blaming the government for the defeat against the centre-right Unión-PRO, Capitanich said he felt a "great respect" for ex-president Néstor Kirchner, who he said "tried to reach consensus in the negotiations of the slates in the elections."