In politics, the worst combination is that of a weakened candidate and a scandal in full campaign. And it is exactly what it faces Javier Milei with José Luis Espertits main letter in the province of Buenos Aires. The liberal economist, who at other times was a Discolo political partner and Milei’s own critictoday is the name headed by the libertarian ballot in the largest district in the country.
But he does it with more enemies than allies within his own space and with an external front that does not forgive: complaints of spurious financing, falling surveys and an intern that now the ruling tries to quell: the decision of the president of Show next Tuesday in San Isidro next to Espert It did not appear on the original agenda. It was urgently resolved, after a week in which different polls marked that the gap with the Peronist Jorge Taiana It would have stretched to 13 points again, when days ago it had been shortened to 8. In the libertarian electoral laboratory, that setback ignited all alarms: if Buenos Aires again becomes a catastrophic defeat (as was the one on September 7), the political blow will fully reach the governance of Milei.
The background problem is not just the numbers. To the usual tensions, the filtration that Espert would have received, in his 2019 presidential campaign, was added, in his 2019 presidential campaign, 200 thousand dollars of “Fred” Machadoan entrepreneur linked to drug trafficking in the United States.
The complaint – given NEWS– suspected suspicions and placed the candidate in the worst possible place: to have to explain non -sanctious links when his party is presented as an adalid of the fight against crime and the mafia state. Milei went out quickly to answer: he described the accusation of “Hairdressing chiempo” And he attributed it to an operation K. But what in the presidential mouth sounds at minimization, in the mouth of his strategists is a cry for help.
Until Karina Mileiwhich always rejected the candidacy of sister, had to accept the order to close ranks. The Secretary General of the Presidency had tried to block it as head of the list and marginalize it from the campaign table, but the electoral reality forced her to give in. “Karina never wanted it, he always distrusted,” they admit in the ruling party. But today the priority is another: avoid the escape of votes and contain the collapse in the key district.
The armor operation has several layers. The first is symbolic: the photo of Milei and Espert together. The second is communicational: carefully scheduled interviews, a presidential speech that insists on The narrative of the “political operation” and the multiplication of content in networks that aim to victimize Espert in front of the opposition attack. The third is territorial: tours scheduled in the conurbano and in cities of the Buenos Aires interior, with the active presence of the president to give oxygen to a candidacy that, alone, does not end up taking off.
The risk, of course, is that the armor turns against Milei himself. Anyway, Milei does not have many options. After the defeat of September 7, what is at stake is more than a handful of benches in Congress. It is the ability to sustain the exchange narrative in front of a volatile electorate and punished by the economy.
By rn
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