Boudou responds

Veep fights back after Santa Fe abuse

Vice-President Amado Boudou referred to a wide range of issues in three separate interviews yesterda: the accusations against him in the Ciccone case, the abuse suffered by himself in Santa Fe and Deputy-Economy Minister Axel Kicillof on a ferry and President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s rumoured desire for a “re-re-election.”

When asked if he had considered resigning after receiving embezzlement accusations following the government’s nationalization of the mint company CVS, formerly known as Ciccone Calcográfica, Boudou responded: “Never,” you “have to put up with it, bite the bullet, and keep moving forward, because it is so obvious that this is a personal attack.”

The vice-president also refuted the existence of a photograph of himself with Alejandro Vandenbroele, the businessman alleged to have been his frontman at Ciccone.

“The case seems as if it had been resolved when I do not even have a formal charge (against me,)” he added, complaining that dailies “Clarín and La Nación try to...pressure judges and prosecutors with their front pages.”

Boudou continued by commenting on the jeering he endured during a recent rally in Santa Fe, implicitly suggesting Governor Antonio Bonfatti, a leader of the Socialist Party, was responsible for the heckling during his speech.

“I am a political leader, I put up with it,” Boudou asserted, though he considered the abuse hurled at Kicillof as he returned from Uruguay on a ferry service to have been “more severe,” describing it as a “fascist, nazi and cowardly attack.”

Despite recent suggestions by Fernández de Kirchner herself that she is unlikely to attempt “re-re-election,” Boudou assured that the President has “plenty of spare energy” to attempt to reform the constitution and subsequently run for a third consecutive term in office.

Lawmakers wages

increase 21.8 percent

Boudou also referred to the recent lawmakers’ 21.8 percent wage hike, which was implemented as of January, claiming the raise was actually overdue and corresponded to last year.

—Herald with DyN