February was intense for Maximo Kirchner. He started the month as former president of the Frente de Todos bloc in the Chamber of Deputies. The day before he had sent his resignation to reject the agreement that was being signed with the IMF. To the son of the vice president Cristina Kirchner The level of adjustment required by the Fund to agree to postpone the start of payments to 2026 and end in 2034 is unacceptable.
the future of Maximum Beyond the vote on the project that entered Congress this week, it is unknown. The son of Cristina Kirchner is trying to get votes against or at least abstentions. He is expected to vote against it. When this happens, it will be evident that his resignation from the presidency of the bloc did not seek to “facilitate” the president’s treatment of the project. Alberto Fernández as stated in his statement. Rather, so far it has produced the opposite effect. The vote in Deputies is going through a strong debate, because the opposition demands that the project be accompanied by the ruling party. If their own do not accompany, why will others?
The brand new deputy Leander Santoro, a personal friend of Alberto Fernández, stated that he would like to vote like Máximo, implying that Máximo will vote differently than him. Santoro will vote in favour.
In the Senate the situation is also complex. The president of the ruling bloc, José Mayans, has already warned that he first wanted to see the numbers before making a decision. As is known, Mayans he does not take a step without consulting Cristina, the vice president, as he calls her. She corrects it every time. “Vice President, ta, ta,” he tells her.
Absent
Since Máximo resigned, he had only three public appearances. He first photographed himself with the mayor of Benito Juarez, then he participated in a meeting with leaders of the Buenos Aires PJ and lastly he visited the city of Comodoro Rivadavia for his birthday together with the Minister of the Interior, Eduardo “Wado” De Pedro, and the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Sergio Massa. She did not go to the opening of ordinary sessions, because she decided to travel to Santa Cruz to attend the start of the school year for his children instead of listening to the President. The excuse given is unusual.
Máximo Kirchner returned to the City of Buenos Aires last Thursday, March 3, at noon on a Tango 11 flight, together with his mother. Cristina Kirchner He had traveled on March 1 after the opening of ordinary sessions. After leaving Congress, the vice president traveled from Aeroparque and arrived around 8 pm on the same day. As reported by the portal Opi Santa Cruz, Máximo was accompanied to the airport by Matías Bezi, a childhood friend who today is manager of YPF’s Southern Regional External Affairs and is also administrator of the Kirchner family’s assets. This was reported to the Justice.
Máximo’s return to the Capital happened the same day that Serge Massa He distributed, in Congress, a copy of the agreement with the IMF among the deputies so that the issue can be dealt with as soon as possible in Congress. It is already speculated how the performance of the vice president’s son will be in that vote. Will she speak? In Albertism they hope not.
On February 16, Máximo turned 45 years old. On the 19th, Cristina turned 69. And on the 25th it was 72 years since the birth of Nestor Kirchner. TAll these anniversaries were celebrated with photos and videos from the social networks of the La Cámpora group, whose communication is centralized together with those of the vice president and her son. Under this premise, and in the absence of declarations of Cristina and Maximo Kirchner, the discursive editing of the videos is interesting. If you look at them through the prism of the current discussion with the IMF, it is clear what CFK and Máximo think: total rejection.
The concern of the vice president’s son is not only that the IMF loan was not reflected in an improvement in infrastructure or investment in the energy sector. But, now, agreeing with them implies punishing the lower-income sectors that are their electoral mass.
skin issue
Máximo and the President never had a feeling. In a recent note on the site El Cohete a la Luna, Horacio Verbitsky recounted what CFK’s son told Alberto shortly before the agreement with the Fund began to be closed. “I clarify that I did not agree with your candidacy, just as I do not agree with this negotiation,” he snapped. Máximo believes that Alberto disrespects his mother, that she had the generosity to promote him to the Presidency. And Alberto, on the contrary, considers that his vice president and his son have not stopped boycotting him since he took power. Her public letters and his last one, with her resignation, polished the image of the president.
Unlike his mother, Máximo did not quietly swallow the agreement with the IMF and kick the board. According to Alberto, Kirchner junior would have told her that CFK did not agree with her resignation, a fact that she has neither confirmed nor denied until now. According to those close to the vice president, she let Alberto know, when they spoke on the phone, that she did not share the conditions of the agreement with the Fund. As he stood up -because the option, she maintained, was to go to default-, she ended up cutting in a bad way: “Do what you want”, is the phrase attributed to her.
In the Casa Rosada they believe that his subsequent silence was a gesture to preserve governability after Máximo had already submitted his resignation.
Go on
Máximo decided not to support the agreement with the IMF because Minister Martín Guzmán was unable to obtain the benefits he had promised them: longer term, lower rate, no quarterly reviews and softer deficit reduction goals for 2022 and 2023. A relevant point It is the increase in rates, especially in the energy area, an issue of special sensitivity for the Kirchnerism that manages that area through the Undersecretary of Energy, Federico Basualdo. These days a novelty emerged that set off all the alarms. The war in Ukraine triggered the price of LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas), which last year was bought at around 8 dollars per million BTU, the unit in which LNG is measured, and which these days is around 55 dollars. In other words, it increased 600%, but the problem is not only the cost of gas, but also the stock. European countries, faced with the possibility of a lack of Russian gas due to the war, decided to go out and buy everything that was on the market and a phenomenon similar to what happened with the Covid vaccines is expected to happen: first, the core countries and the rest will buy what they can. In the Government they planned to buy 60 boats for the winter of this year and they are already thinking that they will not have them. Maximo is also worried about this.
