Argentinean Secretary of Culture, José Nun and former President, Néstor Kirchner

If I were Néstor Kirchner I would give José Nun a raise immediately. The interview we had was an hour and a half unconditional defense and justification of almost every single “kirchnerist” action, included those, such as the INDEC (National Institute of Statistics and Census of Argentina) changes that were criticized by ministers such as Alberto Fernández and Sergio Massa.

It would be better for the government to be backed by the arguments of this serious expert in political science and not by some of those disgraced characters. Nun, a good professor, sometimes exceeds himself in his didactic speech and the extension of his answers. He looked so pro-government he even attributed Kirchner something he did not do: the recovery of the “paritarias” (special commissions where workers and employers are equally represented) and of the “Consejo del Salario” (Salary Council). The program through which the Secretary of Culture gives books together with houses to low-income families looked interesting. He almost got in trouble when he talked about corruption “relapses”. As a good kirchnerist thinker, he gives the media a decisive and malefic role that creates, he says, an unreal image: for a moment, he made me think Néstor Kirchner is Gandhi’s reincarnation.

Ricardo Cárpena on Argentinean Secretary of Culture, José Nun. La Nación, May 31, 2009. Full interview here.