There is a famous anecdote in the corridors of power that has resurfaced recently. It is from 2008, when Sergio Tomás Massa had just become Chief of Staff. In those first days, a journalist went to see Néstor Kirchner at Quinta de Olivos. And when he asked him about the new official, in a chat with the recorder turned off, he was surprised with the answer. “Of all those you see in the Government, he is by far the most similar to me. But with a small difference: he is much more of a son of a bitch.”
This idea resonated again in the heads of many in the red circle these days. Not only because of the political acumen that the Minister of Economy demonstrated to reach, against all odds, until the runoff, but because of how the Tigrense faces the final stretch. In a few days in which the fuel shortage was combined with the escalation due to the impeachment trial at the Court, the candidate managed to sneak an issue onto the agenda: who could be his eventual successor in office if he becomes President. “If I win the elections, the Minister of Economy will be from another political force,” he said in an interview. And the dance of names has already begun.
Roscapalooza
Massa’s idea of going to look for an official from another force is not at all innocent. Since the general elections, the Tigrense want to send signals that not only give a feeling of breadth but also mark a clear break with what was the traumatic experience of the current government. “That is why Sergio insisted so much to go up to the bunker stage alone that Sunday, even though several of the candidates wanted to go up too,” they say from the massist bunker, and they remember that it was not easy to convince all the ruling party priests to leave. only to Massa in his speech.
It is a thesis that is validated in the numbers that Antoní Gutiérrez Rubí, Massa’s Catalan strategist, constantly approaches him. According to the last cut of numbers that he made on Wednesday the 8th, the number of undecided people was still incredibly high: 10 percent of the total electorate who swear that they will go to vote on Sunday, November 19. As the guru thinks, that enormous swath will be deciding its vote until the moments before entering the dark room. Any signal can influence.
That is why Massa dedicates time to oiling relations with politicians of other colors, and has already added adhesions such as that of former governor Juan Manuel Urtubey as well as his brother José, an industrial leader. And that is why he assured that his minister would be from another force, although a person extremely close to the Tigrense, who even held public office in the past, has an alternative vision. “That’s Sergio being Sergio. He is kicking the ball forward, but he doesn’t have anything very defined.” What, then, is true? Could it be another play by Massa, one of those that earned him the definition of Néstor Kirchner?
fortune dance
When Massa launched that definition many eyes went straight to Marina Dal Poggetto. The economist – a regular columnist for the newspaper Perfil – is not only highly respected in the red circle but was one of the first people whom Massa, when he arrived at his position, thought of offering the vice presidency of his ministry, which Gabriel currently occupies. Rubinstein. On the Economy radio aisle they say that they could not agree because Dal Poggetto insisted that the peso had to be devalued before this year’s electoral calendar begins. It was an idea that, according to political calculations, did not convince the Tigrense. In any case, the economist remains on the same line. “The economic plan that comes has to be shock, not gradualist,” she has been saying.
Emmanuel Alvarez Ágis was on the verge of being minister after the resignation of Martín Guzmán, but he asked as a condition for explicit joint support from Alberto Fernández and Cristina Kirchner, which he never obtained. Today his name appears again, although some who know him well maintain that there is not much chance. “He was already in the administration,” says a Peronist deputy who has dialogue with Agis, in reference to his position as vice minister of Economy during the last CFK government. The source adds: “Today he is very involved in the private world, with his consulting, there is no chance.”
Instead, several eyes rest on Martín Redrado. The economist has been part of the Massa team for years, and for some time he has been eager to return to public service. In fact, in 2019, after the Fernández triumph, he had made long attempts to occupy that chair. Redrado is available. Within Massa’s own troops there are several who do not rule out Marco Lavagna, current head of Indec who also has a surname – although he garnered internal criticism for the handling of the last national census – or Rubinstein.
But there is an old saying from vernacular politics that says that, in instances where possible surnames for an important position begin to be considered, “he who sounds, sounds.” And that is why we must pay attention to a striking name, which is going under the radar and which would be a complete surprise: Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, Massa’s historic friend. In the Tigrense camp that surname circulates with caution, but also with some hope. They say there that the minister has already called the head of the Buenos Aires government and has already formally offered him the position. And now the ball is on that side.
patron saint
Roberto Lavagna is always close to Massa. The Tigrense consults him and even usually goes to visit him at the former minister’s house in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Saavedra. The candidate not only has him as a reference man, but has even offered him, on more than one occasion, a position for a possible government. And the lack of definition in this precision is not coincidental: Massa offered Lavagna carte blanche, from a ministry to a more protocol position.
In any case, the response of Néstor Kirchner’s former official is always the same refusal, arguing that at his age he is no longer up to those hustle and bustle. However, Lavagna has collaborated with some technical suggestions and several in massismo dream that, if he wins the Tigrense, the man in question will agree to bless an economic plan.
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