By Manuel Mora MacBeath*
* A journalist based in Mexico who works for the National Security Archive’s Mexico Project.
“Poor Cristina” is a popular Spanish song about Christina Onassis that claims she was so poor the only thing she had was money. The main character of this story has nothing to do with the Cristina from the song. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, unlike “poor Cristina,” however, has power. She is the President of Argentina. Anyone who is president of a country like Argentina has power… but not necessarily money, or at least not as much as someone might expect before taking a look at her pay stub. As Cristina Kirchner said before she made her paystub public: “There are other government officials who make more money than me. I don’t even get a Christmas bonus”.
Why did Cristina Kirchner give out a copy of her pay stub to a handful of reporters who attended her holiday celebration? What do the Justices of the Supreme Court of Mexico have to do with the Argentine President’s outburst of openness? It all started on October 8, 2008 when the Access to Information (ATI) Committee of Mexico’s Supreme Court made the decision to withhold information related to the salary of the Mexican Justices. (more…)
