BUENOS AIRES — Argentine President Alberto Fernandez swore in new Cabinet ministers on Monday during a ceremony at the Bicentennial Museum at Government House.

Fernandez thanked the outgoing ministers for their service, saying the renewal of the Cabinet aims to respond to a part of the Argentine electorate that has evidently been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and has not recovered.

The governor of northwest Tucuman province, Juan Manzur, was appointed Cabinet chief, with Santiago Cafiero leaving that position to serve as minister of foreign affairs and worship.

In addition, the president appointed Anibal Fernandez as minister of security, Julian Dominguez as minister of agriculture, livestock and fisheries, and Jaime Perzyck as minister of education.

Daniel Filmus took over as minister of science and technology, while Juan Ross was appointed as the new secretary of communication and press.

The Cabinet reshuffle came in the wake of the Sept. 12 primary elections, in which the ruling coalition Everybody's Front (Frente de Todos) was defeated in 17 of the country's 24 provinces.

The new Cabinet was announced in a bid to smother a political crisis that pitted him bitterly against his own vice-president after an electoral defeat in legislative primaries.

The reshuffle came one day after Cristina Fernández de Kirchner wrote to the president to demand one, deepening the crisis gripping the Frente de Todos coalition after their poor showing in the weekend primaries.

Due to the crisis, Fernández canceled his visit to Mexico for the summit and won't attend the United Nations General Assembly in New York either.

Ross was also appointed as the new Secretary of Communication and Press, replacing Juan Pablo Biondi, whom the vice-president had openly rejected and accused of organizing "off-the-record operations."

The government has been going through its most acute crisis yet after the PASO primaries, in which the ruling Frente de Todos coalition won only 31 percent of the votes at the national level.

These results put the ruling party's majority in the Senate at risk for the parliamentary by-elections on Nov. 14, as well as any majority in the Chamber of Deputies, with two years of the Fernández-Fernández de Kirchner mandate still to run.

The crisis broke out after Interior Minister Eduardo 'Wado' de Pedro and four Cabinet ministers offered to step down. The officials are all close to Fernández de Kirchner and the move was seen as her attempt to put pressure on Fernández to reshuffle the Cabinet.

In the end, De Pedro and the other ministers kept their posts.

The center-right coalition Juntos, of ex-president Mauricio Macri, obtained 40 percent of the votes cast nationwide in the primaries. It critically made great strides in the Province of Buenos Aires, the country's largest electoral district and considered a Peronist bastion. — Agencies