Argentina in 2012
Argentina in 2012
Area: 2,780,400 sq km (1,073,518 sq mi)
Population (2014 est.): 41,818,000
Capital: Buenos Aires
Head of state and government: President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
In 2014 Pres. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s government made several attempts to bring Argentina back into the good graces of the global financial system. After Argentina experienced a legal setback in the United States during the summer and subsequently defaulted on its sovereign debt, it continued to be treated as an outcast in the international financial community. Domestic problems included rising inflation, a stagnant economy, and limited international and domestic investment.
During the first half of the year, Argentina resolved several disputes with foreign companies and creditors, including a $5 billion settlement with the Spanish multinational Repsol SA in compensation for the Argentine government’s 2012 expropriation of Repsol’s majority stake in the Argentina-based energy company Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales (YPF). Argentina also promised the Paris Club of creditor countries that it would repay the country’s $9.7 billion debt to them by the decade’s end.
The optimism generated by these agreements was dampened when Argentina found itself facing the difficult decision of whether to obey a U.S. court ruling with which it vehemently disagreed or go into default. The Argentine government had gambled that the U.S. Supreme Court would either hear its appeal of a lower court’s decision that had been adverse for Argentina or postpone any decision until 2015. Instead, in June the court refused to hear the appeal and upheld the lower court’s ruling that required Argentina to pay a small group of hedge funds the full principal of bonds that had gone into default in 2001, plus interest.
Unlike about 93% of the holders of bonds on which Argentina defaulted in 2001, these hedge funds refused to enter either the 2005 or 2010 debt-restructuring processes undertaken by the Argentine government. The bondholders who agreed to restructuring received new bonds equivalent to about 30% of the value of the defaulted bonds. After the Fernández government opted to not pay the hedge funds, Argentina entered into default on July 30, 2014, for the eighth time in its history and the fourth time in four decades.
Argentina’s per capita GDP declined by 1% in 2014, and its annual inflation rate—at about 40%—was among the highest in the world. Moreover, after increasing slightly in the first quarter of 2014 (year on year), GDP flatlined in the second quarter and fell by 0.8% in the third. Meanwhile, as currency controls rose and dollar reserves declined, the unofficial Argentine peso–U.S. dollar exchange rate closed the year at nearly twice the official rate.
The 2015 presidential race entered full swing during the latter half of 2014, with Fernández constitutionally prohibited from seeking a third term. In Fernández’s Front for Victory, the president’s least-preferred candidate, Gov. Daniel Scioli of Buenos Aires province, had become the front-runner for the party’s nomination. The political opposition was divided into three main groups, each with its own presidential candidate or set of candidates. From within the broader Peronist movement to which Fernández belonged, National Deputy Sergio Massa (Renewal Front) was the candidate of dissident Peronism. Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri (Republican Proposal) was the unquestioned candidate of the non-Peronist centre-right, and five candidates jockeyed to become the standard-bearer of the centre-left UNEN–Broad Front alliance.
Mark P. Jones