Argentine president defends aides, to stay course

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentine President Cristina Fernandez on Saturday used her first news conference to defend her administration and said she plans no further cabinet changes following a four-month political crisis.

Fernandez is still emerging from the crisis, when farmers protested her tax increase on soy exports. She was forced to ditch the tax and replace key members of her cabinet after her control of Congress eroded and senators rejected the tax.

The nearly two-hour news conference, her first since succeeding her husband Nestor Kirchner as president in December, marked a change of style for combative Fernandez, who stoked anger in recent months with harsh rhetoric against the farm sector.

But Fernandez said she would do it all again when asked about her abortive tax increase, which was ultimately overturned in a dramatic vote in Congress.

"I would do each and every thing that I did again," Fernandez said. "I would push resolution 125 (which raised the tax). For the first time in Argentina since the advent of democracy ... we have seriously discussed ... a law that for the first time addressed redistribution of revenue."

Argentina's economy has seen five years of robust expansion, but Fernandez's popularity has plunged due to rising inflation and the bitter standoff with farmers who protested her soy tax.

Official numbers showing the consumer prices index rising about 9 percent annually have been widely discredited and private estimates put inflation at higher than 20 percent.

The opposition, and critics in the media have called on the president to make wider changes in her cabinet and relaunch her eight-month-old government.

NO MORE CABINET CHANGES

Fernandez defended her controversial domestic commerce secretary, Guillermo Moreno, who is widely accused of undermining inflation data.

Political opponents have called for Moreno to be replaced to restore the credibility of statistics agency INDEC.

"Why are officials always being demonized?" Fernandez asked at the news conference in the presidential residence.

"What is important is that every official, whether the commerce secretary, or any other, works honestly, hard and efficiently."

She has replaced her powerful cabinet chief and her agriculture secretary.

Despite the crushing defeat of her soy tax, which she made the centerpiece of her policy, Fernandez has retained many hard-liners inherited from her husband's cabinet, including Moreno and powerful Planning Minister Julio de Vido.

Asked if she planned any more cabinet changes, she said "No."

She has also stuck with her economic policies including freezing prices on a wide array of goods and services and intervention in the currency market.

The rapid economic growth has led to a heated national debate on how to redistribute windfall profits from the country's top crop, soy.

Fernandez, a leftist who is Argentina's first elected woman president, said taxing sky-high soy exports would help her build hospitals and schools and alleviate poverty.

But farmers blocked highways and held back produce from market on and off for months, arguing that they were being unfairly asked to foot the bill for increased government spending.

Fernandez's combative style has also become an issue as polls showed that many Argentines found her arrogant in her confrontations with farmers. She was criticized for failing to negotiate a way out of the conflict and for bitter attacks on farmers, who she said were trying to topple her.

(Additional reporting by Cesar Illiano and Karina Grazina; writing by Simon Gardner; editing by Mohammad Zargham)