Carlos Zannini
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|---|---|
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| Legal and Technical Secretary for President of Argentina | |
| Assumed office May 25, 2003 | |
| President | Néstor Kirchner (2003-07) Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (since 2007) |
| Preceded by | Antonio Arcuri |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1954-08-27) August 27, 1954 (age 69) Villa Nueva, Córdoba Province, Argentina |
| Spouse | Patricia Alsúa |
| Alma mater | National University of Córdoba |
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Alberto Carlos Zannini (born in August 27, 1954) is an Argentine lawyer and politician. He has been the Legal and Technical Secretary for the President of Argentina since 2003, serving the administrations of both Néstor Kirchner and his wife and successor, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner
Zannini has been described as “one of [former President] Néstor Kirchner’s most trusted men” and as “the power behind the President.” It has been said that his key attribute is his ability “to interpret the decisions of Cristina Kirchner” and to take “the political decisions of Néstor and Cristina Kirchner throughout the ‘winning decade’ and translated them into decrees, resolutions, and bills.”[1]
Zannini was born in the small town of Villa Nueva, in eastern Córdoba Province. His father was a bricklayer and his mother, a housewife. In his childhood he was a serious tennis player.[2][3]
He became active in politics in the early 1970s, with the election in 1973 of President Héctor Cámpora and the subsequent third presidency of Juan Perón. He considered himself a Maoist in his youth[2][3] and belonged to a Maoist group called the Communist Vanguard.[4] He is nicknamed “El Chino” (The Chinese) because of “his admiration during his youth for the policies of Mao Tse-Tung in the People's Republic of China.”[5]
After the 1976 coup, because of his membership in the Communist Vanguard, Zannini was arrested and held in the La Cacha prison in La Plata for four years. He was eventually released and completed law school at the National University of Córdoba. In 1982, Zannini organized “the Peronist boys” in El Carmen (Jujuy Province).[6] He was invited by a friend, Roberto Arizmendi, to move to Río Gallegos. There he met Néstor Kirchner in 1984, who was then a city councilman and lawyer, and Kirchner's wife Cristina Fernández.[2]
He is the father of four children from two marriages. His first wife died in 1986, a few months after the birth of her second child. He is married to Patricia Alsúa, an attorney with whom he had two children.[7]
Zannini held various positions within the civil service, mostly in the Province of Santa Cruz, and invariably alongside Kirchner.[4]
In 1987 he was appointed Secretary of Municipal Government in Río Gallegos. When Kirchner was elected governor in 1991, Zannini was appointed Minister of the Interior of the province. When Cristina Fernandez resigned from the Provincial Legislature to join the National Congress, Zannini was elected to replace her. In 1999 he was appointed by Kirchner as president of the Superior Court of Santa Cruz.[8]
He has been described as the “architect of two constitutional reforms in the Patagonian province,” one of which, in 1994, enabled Néstor Kirchner to run for a second term as governor of Santa Cruz, and the second of which, in 1998, established term limits and eliminated the consanguinity clause.[4] He also implemented the “voting system that that assures the ruling party an overwhelming majority in the provincial legislature.”[4] One source states that his greatest political achievement for the governor was a 1995 law expanding the Provincial Court from three to five members, giving Kirchner an "automatic majority."[9]
Zannini was appointed the Legal and Technical Secretary of the Presidency of Argentina by President Néstor Kirchner upon his inaugural on May 25, 2003. He was confirmed in this position in 2007 and 2011 by President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.[8] His office is “on the ground floor of the State House, behind the Patio de las Palmeras.” Zannini “has a direct relationship with the President of the Supreme Court of Justice Ricardo Lorenzetti,” and this friendship has been key to the progress of judicial reform in Congress.[4]
Zannini also directs the Kirchnerist youth organization, La Cámpora. He has been described as the man who runs this group “from the shadows,” while it is nominally run by Máximo Kirchner.[10] Laura Di Marco has written a book about La Campora.[10]
Zannini has been described as having been a Kirchnerist from the very beginning and as having “never left” the fold.[1] “First at the local level of Río Gallegos, then in the provincial government and finally as president,” writes one source, “Néstor Kirchner was always flanked by Zannini, the man who drafted speeches, decrees, bills and, above all, telling him where and when or not to sign it.” Zannini has told both Kirchners “what to veto, whom to appoint to key positions,” and so on. Nothing happens in the government “without his permission and supervision.”[4]
He was described in October 2013 as “the strong man, the real power behind the scenes,”[11] the “power in the shadows,”[5] the "juridical architect of Kirchnerism,”[12] the “custodian of the presidential signature and ideological guardian of the K project,”[7] “the brain of judicial reform,”[4] and “the most powerful functionary in the government.”[4]
It has been surmised that his strength lies not in his influence on the President’s decisions but in his ability to interpret the President’s wishes.[1] Although it is Vice President Amado Boudou who formally replaces the president when she is ill, Zannini has been described as being the real seat of power in her absence.[13]
Buenos Aires Province Governor Daniel Scioli, the front runner in the Kirchnerist Front for Victory primary for the nomination, named Zannini as his running mate in his campaign for the 2015 presidential election.[14]
Zannini was accused in 2012 of 38 counts of embezzlement, fraud, and other forms of corruption. The case has been overseen by Judge Norberto Oyarbide. Among the numerous setbacks the ivestigation faced was an incident in which the judge ordered a raid on Zannini's property to gather evidence, only to have Carlos Liuzzi, a presidential secretary, call him to order him to cancel the raid.[15]
Zannini's wealth reportedly increased from 190,000 pesos (US$65,000) to over 7 million from 2003 to 2011 (US$1.6 million) while receiving a civil servant's salary.[15]
Zannini played a prominent role in judicial proceedings involving Argentina and holdouts holding Argentine bonds led by Cayman Islands-based NML Capital Limited, which rejected the 2010 swap offer and instead demands US$832 million for Argentine bonds purchased for US$49 million in the secondary market in 2008.[16] Zannini said on July 27, 2014, at the third meeting of a group called the Kirchner Militancy, that the concept of default was “not applicable" in this case, since Argentina maintains both the ability and willingness to pay bondholders affected by the Griesa ruling that blocked payments to non-holdout bondholders (92%).[17][18]
Zannini described NML and other vulture funds as members of the “international scab financial system.” Zannini rejected the decision of a U.S. judge who ordered Argentina to pay its creditors, calling the creditors “vultures” and “pirates.” He also criticized Judge Thomas Griesa, who, he said, “seemed to have understood nothing” and “did not understand that this is a sovereign country that has to respect the constitution.” While he insisted that Argentina would pay its bondholders, he added that Cristina Kirchner would “not sign anything that could bring hunger to Argentines and will continue negotiations to prevent damage occurring to the people.”[19] Griesa's decision was similarly rejected by the Organization of American States,[20] the G-77 (133 nations),[21] and the Council on Foreign Relations,[22] as well as by bondholders whose payments were stopped by the Griesa court.[23][24]
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