It is not easy to envision the Peronist future, with the electoral scenario still uncertain. Everything would indicate that the FDT is heading towards a defeat of a certain magnitude, after which a major dispersion of its forces could occur together with the advent of a government much more to the right. In these 40 years of democracy, now without Perón (the only one “naturally” legitimized to overcome the costs of failures), after each major setback in the presidential elections, the justicialismo, which usually escapes the losing figures or structures within it , was reconstituted around the emergence of new leaderships: the “renovators” Cafiero and, above all, Menem, projected after the unprecedented setback of 1983; those of Kirchnerism, after the departure of Menemism in 1999 and his frustrated attempt to return in 2003. Cristina was able to avoid that fate after the defeat in 2015, arguing that the one who was on the ballot was Scioli, and then being benefited by the comparison with the lousy subsequent macrista administration.
Get rid of the failed government of Alberto Fernández that she herself designed, try to contain the damage of the decline and show that she still retains remnants of power and influence (especially if she maintains the province with Kicillof) to lead the opposition to a probable future management of JxC They will be some of Cristina’s few tools on the near horizon. It will not be easy for her, due to the depth of the crisis that she still promises to worsen until December and the costs that non-Kirchnerist Peronism will try to make Cámpora and her allies pay. Perhaps we are witnessing the beginning of a terminal cycle of Kirchnerism, with the reconstitution of some of its factions and electoral bases going in other directions, at the same time as a new leap in the process of fragmentation of traditional Peronism, sheltered in the provincial and local administrations, the union apparatus and some social movements, all under the “danger” of being tempted to coopt a future cambiemite power.
These months will undermine Peronism’s many possibilities of showing itself as a genuine opponent of the obvious right-wing adjustment to come from 2024, since this is already happening from now on through inflation. That affects the expectations of the Wado, Massa and Máximo. But some new leadership from that position is likely to occur.
*Hernán Camarero is a historian and professor at the UBA.
by Hernán Camarero
