Although Argentina continues to be very rich in human talent, no one would deny that currently many who are dedicated to politics are not known for their wisdom, their administrative capacity or, of course, their personal honesty. It is therefore understandable that so many have come to the conclusion that, in this area so important to people’s lives, the worst have managed to marginalize the best to form an inverted meritocracy, a “kakistocracy”, hence the overwhelming success of the preaching against “the caste.”
A consequence of the discredit of politics has been that, after a very long electoral process, citizens have to choose between Javier Milei and Sergio Massa, that is, between an improvised man who is comically eccentric and a man who has become famous for his serial opportunism, thereby creating a situation that motivates anguish here and amazement in other latitudes, where Argentine extravagances provoke laughter.
Nobody ignores that, to get out of the inhospitable desert in which the country has been wandering for decades, it would need to have a truly exceptional government. He’ll get it? Those who talk about how repugnant it is to be forced to choose between Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan or two equally chilling figures may exaggerate, but many share the sentiment thus expressed. If they vote, they will do so to prevent the one they most repudiate from taking over the presidency, not because they trust that one is the right one to occupy it.
That painful debate on Sunday only served to confirm that Milei has not prepared himself to govern a country that often seems determined to commit suicide and that Massa, the political professional, is more than willing to bombard his adversaries with chicanes, folderols and any other missile you find at hand. Although it was evident that Massa won the verbal brawl that took place at the UBA Law School, it is possible that his penchant for “bullying” and his attempt to make people think that he was not really the Minister of Economy cost him votes. from Argentina but from Norway or Qatar and who knows very well how to solve the distressing problems that he himself has greatly aggravated during the course of his administration. We will see.
Unfortunately, popular will is one thing and reality is quite another. Whoever takes over the presidency once the rigorous procedures are completed will be faced with an inflationary tsunami that will tend to gain more and more strength, a Central Bank with nothing valuable in the vaults, a terrible international reputation, unemployment on the rise and what remains of the productive sector is in the process of paralyzing due to lack of the inputs it has to import.
What will the chosen one do? Judging by what they say, neither Milei nor Massa have the slightest idea about what they should do; They prefer to skip over the short term to concentrate on what they would do years later if by then the country has enough resources to allow them to launch their respective programs. It sounds very good to allude to a clean slate that reverses the results of a century of decline, as Milei does, or, in the case of Massa, how positive it would be if the government undertook countless concrete measures aimed at helping the stragglers, but for now they are words, nothing more.
Although at first glance it would seem that the alternative before the electorate could hardly be clearer, since on the one hand there is a hyper-liberal prophet and on the other a complete representative of the populist and statist “caste”, the circumstances are such that, in In practical terms, a government led by Milei, say, could turn out to be very similar to one led by Massa, or vice versa. The fact is that, to survive in office, the next president will need to have the support of many members of the oligarchic, business, union and political “red circle”, that is, of the old regime.
Strange as it may seem, there are signs that a consensus is being consolidated in the sense that what the country needs is much more real capitalism, no less as the adherents of the old corporate order would like, so that, in addition to becoming internationally competitive, can provide its inhabitants with an acceptable level of well-being. We must not forget that Massa began his political career in Álvaro Alsogaray’s Ucedé and that over the years he has cultivated his personal relationships with influential North American businessmen. In the opinion of those who did not want him to be the presidential candidate of the Kirchnerist “space”, he is a right-winger.
While Milei has already allied himself with Mauricio Macri, Patricia Bullrich, Pro cadres who respond to them and some radicals who forgive him for the many insults directed at their leading men, Massa, like Horacio Rodríguez Larreta before being eliminated from the race, proposes form a government of national unity in which, he hints, the person in charge of rebuilding the economy could come from Together for Change.
Even though Massa is an instinctive supporter of the congenitally corrupt “crony capitalism” and in the debate fervently defended protectionism, he seems to be aware of how advantageous it would be for him if elected to try to respect the rules in force in the most prosperous countries in the world. western. After all, although Argentina’s future will depend mainly on what its own leaders do, it would be a serious mistake on the part of the eventual president to minimize the importance of the role that the goodwill of others could play.
The role of the International Monetary Fund in the Argentine drama is ambiguous; appears as the alleged culprit of all unfriendly government measures while continuing to be an essential source of funds, which causes almost daily friction. Even so, it will continue to constitute the main link between the country and the economic centers of the world. Fortunately for Alberto’s successor, despite the pressure from thrifty countries like Japan and Germany and the manifest hostility of many Kirchnerists, the organization does not want to wash its hands of Argentina because it understands that the eventual implosion of the national economy would have repercussions. very negative in the rest of the planet.
It is for this reason that the country’s extreme weakness could be beneficial at a time of serious international upheaval caused by the offensive unleashed by the dictatorial regimes of Russia and Iran, with the cautious support of the Chinese Communist Party. For the United States and its allies, Argentina is far from being a priority, but today they would be more willing to work to rescue it from a disaster attributable to a dysfunctional internal political order than they would have been a few years ago, when, before the invasion of Ukraine and the fierce blow of the Islamist organization Hamas against Israel, the world outlook seemed more promising to them.
Although there is no doubt that Milei and his Macri partners want to break with the Kirchnerist past as soon as possible, Massa has been forced to act in a less explicit way. However, he already publicly insists that he is not Cristina and, by underlining his desire to lead a government “of national unity”, he implies that he has distanced himself from a sect that is repudiated not only by those who are active in openly opposition groups but also by many. Peronists. Are his statements in this regard sincere? Although no one would accuse him of being faithful to his own words, he is such an ambitious man that it would not occur to him to resign himself to being manipulated by a “boss” in the shadows. It is to be expected that, as soon as the Kirchnerists stop being useful to him, Massa will finally sweep away “the gnocchi of La Cámpora” and, of course, Cristina.
Although many may not like it, the person elected, or condemned, to try to govern a country that is at risk of collapsing will have to attribute almost all the problems to their predecessors. This is what the Kirchnerists did with the “ah, but Macri” thing. Milei already has a very long list of culprits: Yrigoyen, Alfonsín, the “evil” Pope Francis, the communists, the socialists, the Kirchnerists and virtually all the other politicians there have been or will be.
Although it is assumed that Massa will try to maintain the tradition of attacking former President Macri for being a personal enemy, he will understand that doing so has lost effectiveness. It would not be surprising, then, that, once firmly screwed to the mythical “Rivadavia chair,” he made Cristina and her adjectives the scapegoats for the great national catastrophe. It happens that, in circumstances like the current ones, the unity sought has its limits. By commission or omission, many contributed to the tragedy that the country is experiencing, but some, starting with the members of the current government who, whether the candidate minister recognizes it or not, includes him, contributed most of it, which is why they would have to distance himself as much as possible from those who will have been his companions until Sunday night, since, even if he lost to Milei, the memorable electoral comeback that he has staged in very adverse circumstances should assure him the right to be considered the natural leader of the Peronist movement and its many satellites.
