Roberto Lavagna’s dismissal as Argentina’s economy minister came as no surprise. Rumours have been circling for some time that he was on the verge of leaving. He had an uneasy relationship with the president, Néstor Kirchner, and it was always a question of when, not if, he would depart.
Friction between the two had intensified in recent weeks, especially after Lavagna made remarks that were taken as a direct criticism of one of the president’s closest confidants.
This was the trigger for Kirchner, emboldened by his party’s success in October’s legislative election, to put in place an economic team more akin to his way of thinking. Kirchner is a populist relatively close to the style of Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez; Lavagna takes a fiscally responsible...
