Juan Domingo Perón said that true politics was international politics. Alberto Fernández, whose interpretation of the General’s ideas was always disputed, seems to have understood that maxim better than anyone. The President always felt more comfortable and freer talking among his peers in the region or Europe than having to deal with internal fire.
That is why the CELAC summit, the community that houses Latin American and Caribbean countries that this time was based in Argentina, was central to Alberto and to his re-election strategy. And, contrary to the version that the Casa Rosada tried to install, the shot backfired. And he not only revived friendly fire but also left a trail of wounded.
retrick. To understand this story, and its consequences, we must go back to January 2022. At that time, the Mexico of Andrés Manuel López Obrador ceded the CELAC presidency to Argentina. For Alberto, who until then only had one international showcase to show himself -the devalued Puebla Group, where there are barely three active leaders and the rest are all former officials-, being in charge of this organization was a more than important trophy.
This community is made up of the heads of state of 33 countries, among which are the most powerful on the continent, and its presidency allowed the president to show himself not only to neighboring countries but also to use that platform to make high-level international leaps. . An example: Fernández never had a bilateral meeting with Joe Biden -and it is most probable that his term ends that way- but nevertheless the Argentine was invited to the Summit of the Americas, a central event in which he achieved the desired photo with the American.
He was not invited to that high-flying meeting in Los Angeles as President of Argentina, but as representative of CELAC. This was the true advantage of being in charge of this institution, and that is why Fernández and his team made so much effort not to lose their place.
You also have to keep an eye on the future. In May of last year, during his tour of Europe, Alberto had a bilateral meeting with Pedro Sánchez. In that meeting, the Argentine and the Spanish had begun to put together the idea of putting together, by mid-2023, a new summit that would include all CELAC member countries and all members of the European Union. It was an interesting bet, whose two great organizers would be Sánchez and Fernández in the eyes of the entire world, and with a timing that was not at all innocent: that meeting would fall very shortly before the national elections.
For this reason, during a large part of last year, and until the Friday before the summit that took place on Tuesday the 24th at the Sheraton Hotel in the City, Fernández and the Foreign Ministry headed by Santiago Cafiero made strenuous efforts to renew the presidency of the CELAC. This body has presidencies that rotate at the end of a year, but -as Mexico demonstrated, which was in charge for two consecutive terms- if a country manages with waist, it can manage to renew.
Contrary to the idea that the Casa Rosada tried to install – that the summit was a success and that the idea of handing over the presidency to the small Caribbean country of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines had been arranged and that it was agreed – Albertismo tried to the last time to hold the post.
In the Whatsapp chat held by the coordinators of each CELAC nation, which has been very active in recent weeks, the Argentine envoys insisted that Argentina should renew. The efforts, in the world of international diplomacy that is handled with great caution and protocol, seem to have been excessive. At least that is how Mexico understood it, which circulated a statement among different Latin American references where it harshly criticized the Foreign Minister.
They pointed it out to Cafiero for stopping “all” the projects that Mexico had started when it was in charge of CELAC, for having stopped the issuance of joint communiqués, for not presenting any specific project for this summit, for having failed in the attempt to institutionalize that body, and, above all, for having tried to stop the candidacy of San Vicente by taking steps “at the highest level.” It is clear that López Obrador did not attend the summit in Argentina, it was no coincidence.
Beyond the fact that Fernández could not achieve his goal, the modus operandi with which he managed it is interesting: he tried to stretch the definition of the successor president until the last moment, and to make the resolution more complex so that there was no clear candidate and he was almost elected by default. Is he thinking of that same strategy for the national elections?
And at home. The meeting also had repercussions within the Frente de Todos. That crisis revolved, this time, around the figure of Lula, who had already suffered the consequences of this war. The first time was when he came to the country, at the end of 2021, and was pulled in the Plaza de Mayo in an act between Alberto and Cristina, and the second time when he put on a cap with the legend “CFK 2023” on the day he won. the Brazilian elections, an image that caused people to talk. Here we must make a caveat: Lula is not only an old and nice gentleman, as some want to paint him, but a full-fledged political animal. Every gesture he makes must be understood in that sense.
That is why many in the Frente de Todos were struck by the idea that Albertism spread that the Brazilian had told Fernández that he supported his re-election. A similar idea is privately held by Daniel Scioli, who claims to have Lula’s support. In any case, neither of the two things said the newly elected president in public, where he limited himself to talking about the differences he has with the “extreme right.”
However, the great story of this summit was the coming and going about a meeting between CFK and Lula. For Kirchnerism, this hand in hand was not only important on a political level – at a time when Alberto seems to have monopolized the relationship and affection of the Brazilian – but also on a symbolic level. “She recently suffered an assassination attempt, it wasn’t good that Lula didn’t take a while to see her,” they say in this world, and cast a cloak of doubts about the intentions of albertismo when arming the neighboring president with an ornate agenda in his two days in the country.
From the Casa Rosada they lower the price of this version and assure that there was no room for anything else, and that the security conditions – here we must take into account that Lula has just suffered an attempt to destabilize his country – implied that the leaders could not leave the hotel on the day of the Summit. Cristina had offered to receive Lula in her office in the Senate -as she received the Bolivian Luis Arce and the Colombian Petro-, Lula refused to see her at the Hotel, but there was no quorum.
However, the theory that the problem was the clock does not seem to hold up. The day after the summit in Argentina ended, Lula went to Uruguay to have a meeting with Lacalle Pou and, yes, he took a while to travel to the farm where former President José “Pepe” Mujica lives. The conclusions are drawn by themselves.
But that was not the only wound that was left open. On the internal front, a war broke out after Albertismo avoided notifying the Minister of the Interior, Wado de Pedro, about Lula’s tour of La Rosada on Monday the 23rd. De Pedro was annoyed, but the final straw that broke the glass was because that agenda included a meeting between the Brazilian and human rights organizations.
To him, who is the son of disappeared persons, that play went down badly, and he ordered his people to circulate a very harsh off in the media. There he accused the President of “not having codes” for not having included him in an “issue that has to do with his history”, and that the reason for not doing so was because “Alberto sees him as a competitor for the next elections”. A return of courtesies that included a punch below his waist.
Future. On the horizon appears the return of UNASUR, the South American integration organization that Lula asked to raise again. Alberto, until the Friday before the summit, when he realized that he was not going to be able to re-elect, he preferred to stay with CELAC and not return to UNASUR, as he had already told the Brazilian when they held a meeting on victory day of Lula.
It is a mystery how the relationship between the presidents will develop now, which until now was only formal – with Lula out of power – and now it must be between heads of state. Above, the Casa Patria Grande, the state body that is the articulator between Latin American countries, has been outside the scope of the Foreign Ministry since 2020 and still has goods from the old UNASUR delayed in Customs. There are open flanks on all sides.
