Argentina: Alberto Fernández wants to make the Internet a public service

"I have also been young," joked Alberto Fernández as soon as he began his speech before several hundred young people in Tecnópolis (a science, technology, industry and art mega exhibition). Along with part of his cabinet and several of the candidates of the Frente de Todos in the province and city of Buenos Aires, the President defended the Government's position to declare the internet as a “public service”, and in the context of gestures and signals explicit to approach the young vote in the middle of the electoral campaign, he affirmed: “I have a gene that has never been turned off. I continue to keep my revolutionary vocation alive as a young man”.

“We are going to make the Internet a public service, so they don't keep stealing from us with the rates. And let those who have to get angry get angry,” said the President from Tecnópolis. The objective of Fernández, as La Nación was able to reconstruct from sources close to the Head of State and Enacom, was to "ratify" the political decision he made when he signed the decree of necessity and urgency 690 last year in which he declared public services to the internet, telephony and pay TV. The President's motivation was to make his position clear in the midst of the prosecution of the DNU in which Telecom, DirecTV and Telecentro advanced with precautionary measures. But there would be no other plan in place.

The event led by Fernández focused on the relaunch of the Argentina Programa plan, which plans to deliver 100,000 pesos to each young person who completes the programmer course, a sum that must be allocated to acquire a computer. During his speech, in which he defended the vaccination policy and the prolonged quarantines, the President also questioned “the liberals”, a group that gain ground among the young. “There are liberals who talk about freedoms, but deep down they are very conservative. Pick those liberals for the ticket, boys and girls. Freedom is freedom for some, and catastrophe and hardship for millions”, said the President.

The Government's concern for the young vote began to grow about two months ago, when quantitative tables and focus groups exhibited a marked retraction in the support of this age group to Alberto Fernández, compared to the 2019 numbers. The first vote, which may be cast by those over 16 and up to 18, is approximately 3 percent of the electoral roll of just over 34 million total voters.

Willing to seduce them, the President described young people as the "protagonists of history" and praised "that rebellion that seeks more equality and freedom." He gave as examples the musicians of his generation, from the Beatles to his friend Lito Nebbia, and related them to “those who made the French May”, in the city of Paris, around 1968. He also mentioned his son Dyhzy, “who always reminds me that the demand for freedom always came from the young ”.

The appearance of the President in Tecnópolis along with candidates and young people, and the announcement of subsidies of up to 100,000 pesos to purchase computers, marks the beginning of a week full of events that will combine management with the campaign, on the edge of the deadline for inaugurations officers.

Source: La Nación