PRESS SECRETARY STEPS DOWN RESIGNS AFTER CFK CRITICISM

Communications & Press Secretary to the Presidency Juan Pablo Biondi has presented his resignation to Alberto Fernández, less than a day after Vice-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner accused him of carrying out “operations” in the media against her.

Biondi, one of the president’s most trusted aides and a close personal friend, published his resignation letter on Twitter with a picture of the two of them together.

“Always together with A lber to Fer ná ndez towa rds the life we want,” wrote the outgoing official.

In his resignation letter, the 49-year-old said he was “offended” by the claims against him and that he regretted “the misinterpretations made about me by the Vice President of the Nation, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.”

He wrote that his resignation was “undeclinable.”

In an explosive letter published Thursday laced with strong criticism of President Fernández and his Cabinet, Fernández de Kirchner had let rip at what she perceived as attempts to slur her character in the press.

“Regarding the category of officials who do not work, the presidential spokesperson would escape that classification. A rare case: a presidential spokesman whose voice no-one knows. Or does he have some other function that we don’t know about? The one to do with operations ‘off-the-record’ for example? A true mystery,” said Fernández de Kirchner.

“I will not continue to tolerate the press operations that are carried out on me and on our political space from the presidential environment through its spokesperson,” wrote the former president.

“The operations are permanent and eventually they only end up wearing down the government,” she added.