A man passes by the Central Bank of Argentina in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Aug. 4, 2020. The Argentine government confirmed on Tuesday that it has reached an agreement with its three main groups of private creditors and other minority bondholders to restructure a part of the country's foreign debt, valued at 66.2 billion U.S. dollars. (Photo by Martin Zabala/Xinhua)

Argentina appointed economist Silvina Batakis as its new economy minister Sunday after Martin Guzman, the architect of a debt restructuring deal with the IMF, unexpectedly resigned. 

President Alberto Fernandez appointed the 53-year-old Batakis, "a renowned economist" who was economy minister for Buenos Aires province from 2011 to 2015, the president's spokesperson announced on Twitter.

The center-left leader had held consultations all day Sunday to find a replacement for Guzman, who was tasked with renegotiating a $44 billion debt with the International Monetary Fund that Argentina insisted it could not afford to repay.

The original debt of $57 billion - the last tranche of which Fernandez declined after succeeding his liberal predecessor Mauricio Macri, who had solicited the loan - was the largest ever issued by the IMF.

Guzman was praised for having stopped Argentina, Latin America's third-largest economy, from defaulting with the deal finalized in March.

But he was regularly challenged by the Peronist Justicialist Party, the major force in the Frente de Todos (Everyone's Front) ruling coalition, embodied by the still-influential Cristina Kirchner, the country's vice president and president from 2007 to 2015. 

Batakis' appointment appears to be a signal of growing power of Kirchner's faction in the center-left coalition.

She was economy minister for Buenos Aires province under then-governor Daniel Scioli. Scioli was vice president under president Nestor Kirchner, and close to his wife, Cristina Kirchner. 

AFP