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LatinNews Regional Monitor: Brazil & Southern Cone - 02 June 2017

Argentina’s Macri launches Odebrecht offensive

Development: On 1 June, Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri accused the country’s attorney general, Alejandra Gils Carbó, of “inaction” in investigating bribes which the disgraced Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht admits to having paid to government officials in Argentina to secure some US$278m worth of infrastructure contracts.

Significance: President Macri’s scathing attack on Gils Carbó is a clear sign of confidence that the Odebrecht scandal will prove to be far more damaging to the political opposition than to his government. In the wake of the resignation of his foreign minister, Susana Malcorra, this week for personal reasons, the head of the opposition Frente para la Victoria (FPV, Kirchneristas) bloc in the federal lower chamber of congress, Héctor Recalde, linked Malcorra’s departure to accords the government tried to strike with Odebrecht. Macri appears to have been stung into action by what he sees as the injustice of the attack. While settling a US$3.5bn fine with Brazilian, US, and Swiss authorities in December 2016, Odebrecht admitted to bribing officials in Argentina to the tune of US$35m in 2007-2014 which coincides with the term of office of Macri’s FPV predecessor, former president Cristina Fernández (2007-2015).

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