The move to the side of the former CEO of Syngenta, who left after a wave of rumors that put him as the new Minister of Economy -said that in massismo do not hesitate to point out that they left the now former official-, reflects perfectly how erratic this government was. And it also serves to understand the precise moment in which he is. With the economy raging and electoral competition just around the corner, everyone is playing the chips to secure their place on the electoral board.
Because it was so close to the key date, many, especially in massismo, distrusted Aracre’s move. The now outgoing adviser had lunch on Monday the 18th with Fernández, and had brought him a comprehensive plan of ideas for the economy. That sketch contained the word that Cristina Kirchner fears the most: devaluation.
After that meal, the rumors that Aracre was the nominee to succeed Massa began to spread throughout the red circle. On the Tigrense side they are convinced that he was the former CEO, with whom they had already had serious differences, the one who made them run. And that certainty leaves a question floating in the air: was Alberto behind the attempt?
The President has been immersed, for some time now, in an emotional seesaw. Those who treat him say that some days he moves and feels on top of the world. They are those moments where, as he leaked in a chat that he had with the ultra K journalist Roberto Navarro, he thinks that he “is going to end twenty years of Kirchnerism.” When he has an attentive audience, he even develops that thesis and shows what he thinks are irrefutable proofs.
He maintains that he “managed” to win two key battles. The first was the resistance that he gave against the establishment of a “political table”, with Christian and Massista participation, with which they wanted to “tell him how to govern.” It is a logic that, as usually happens in the Albertist world, has some truth and some falsehood, although – and those who treat the president agree on this – the question remains to what extent Fernández is aware of this last part. It is that governance, at this end of the mandate, depends on Sergio Massa, who has no problem stating that he makes decisions about the economy without even consulting or notifying the president. The Government is made up of different groups that mistrust each other and that operate something as sensitive as the State as if they were islands.
The other big issue that has Fernández exalted is the elections. Despite the offensive to desist from his intentions to weigh him down in the contest, the President managed to hold the advance. The PASO are already a fact accepted by all the tribes of the Frente de Todos, and it is one of the elements in which Alberto stops to affirm that his share of power is more alive than ever. And he began to move the chips. After enduring the very tense meeting with Máximo Kirchner and other priests in the PJ, in mid-February, Fernández ordered the party to begin ordering its institutional life in view of the voting. Agustín Rossi, his increasingly close chief of staff, led a meeting of the “technical teams”, the members of Peronism who manage the logistics of the campaign, which had the striking reappearance of the former Minister of Health, Ginés González García, that he had resigned -and on very bad terms with Alberto- due to the VIP vaccination scandal.
Fernández’s other move was to push a candidate. Although he refuses to admit it – “he cannot say that he is not a candidate until the last minute, it would be shooting himself in the foot”, says a close friend of the President – and he even shakes up the polls that show that he is equal to the other possible competitors for the of the ruling party – numbers that do not take into account what CFK’s public support could push to any of them -, all the rest of the actors of the Frente de Todos already take it for granted that he will not appear. What the President thinks internally about him is difficult to know, but in one thing it is clear that he is right: his government had so few results that he managed to make Kirchnerism, the main space partner, lose its electoral appeal. . In the mud, without Cristina Kirchner in the middle, they are all at the same almost underground level.
Emergency. Just in case, the President has already activated his plan B, which has two names and two surnames: Daniel Scioli and Victoria Tolosa Paz.
That idea was going well in this part of the camp, but it had an unexpected chapter. It is that the former motorboat met on Wednesday the 12th with the mayor of Quilmes, Mayra Mendoza, a close ally of Máximo Kirchner who does not take important steps without first consulting the camporista leader. It was a photo that fell heavily on Albertism, where they want to present that formula as one 100% owned by the President: there they sniffed out a possible betrayal on the part of the former governor. Scioli, quick of reflexes, circulated the image as proof that he could be the “consensus” candidate, since he also had K support. Close to Scioli they trust that, with the economy entering a serious inflationary spiral, they can beat the minister in one STEP.
But he is not the only one who is moving. In the Economy, despite inflation and the rise in the blue dollar, they continue to present Massa as the only possible candidate. “If Sergio does badly, everything flies and no one has a chance. And if he can more or less accommodate something, have a last month of inflation below four points, he has a chance. The market today only trusts him, ”says one of his managers. It would seem that, at least for the inmate, the Tigrense is going to play.
In camp K there are also shakes. On the one hand, the expectation is growing that in the mega-act on May 25 at 9 de Julio, two decades after Néstor’s inauguration, Cristina will define her last play. Some -like Andrés Larroque- continue to believe that she is going to present herself, while the bulk of Kirchnerism predicts that she will make some support official that day. Just in case, Pedro’s Interior Minister “Wado” is already moving. He was the only one of the camporistas high command to publicly support the idea of PASO -something that in the most radical tribes of Kirchnerism, who are still waiting for a definition of CFK, went down badly- and he has been touring the country for a while.
Here it is also interesting to observe another of Fernández’s “achievements”: that Cristina was involved in a political trap. If, after this government, he supported another “mixed” formula -like Scioli and Zannini in 2015, and Alberto and her in 2019- it would not only be a blow to the morale of his base -and also to his leadership, like De Pedro- but also a move with a dubious ending. You cannot expect to repeat the same castling three times and not lose effectiveness. Alberto, in this sense, has some glimpse of reality when he affirms that he is about to “end” the twenty years of Kirchnerist domination over Peronism: the vice president -convicted during the Frente de Todos government- has already lost even the monopoly power of her finger Alberto did it, it could be the campaign jingle, as was Menem’s.
However, enthusiasm is scarce within the ruling party. Although, if the elections cannot be won – a feeling increasingly shared by all the tribes in space – there is still a loot to be disputed. It is the leadership of Peronism, of the future opposition, starting next year. With CFK with a “broken finger”, Fernández, Massa and the Kirchnerists with their own flight, such as “Wado”, look at this contest with open eyes.
