There are questions that nobody likes to ask. What will happen to the country if it turns out that the opposition does not live up to what is expected of it? Will the national political class be able to put an end to a crisis that is due exclusively to its own characteristics? Is democracy compatible with economic rationality? These are not merely rhetorical questions; the fate of tens of millions of people will depend on the answers.
Let’s go by parts. Since the middle of last month, almost all those interested in the future of Argentina have taken for granted that the next president will come out of the ranks of Together for Change. be determined to assume, even if only implicitly, some responsibility for the future of the country.
Is it what they are doing? Of course not. The decision of the deputy Gabriela Brouwer of the “space” of the radical Martín Lousteau to go on vacation to Disneyland in Miami when special sessions were held, and in such a way to allow the ruling party to achieve by a vote that a tax increase was approved, had a very strong impact because it made one think that the opposition is not taken seriously. Likewise, albeit indirectly, the legislators of Together for Change seem to be warning us that, before undertaking the thankless task that a substantial part of the electorate has in store for them, they would have to solve their many internal problems, something that, as everyone knows very well. Well, it could keep them fully occupied for much longer than the two years that according to the Constitution are left to the current administration of Alberto Fernández.
It is for this reason that both he and other leaders of the Frente de Todos are displaying a surprising degree of optimism. In his view, they won by losing because the electoral debacle they suffered in November served to make the divisions of the opposition more visible and, what is even more significant, to expose how difficult it would be for them to formulate clear proposals. They sense that their adversaries are intimidated by the responsibilities that would await them if one of their own were to win at the polls. They want those from Together for Change to define themselves, to say precisely what they would do if, as many anticipate, they have to govern the country, because they understand very well that offering the electorate a sensible economic program, no matter how gradual, could be politically suicidal. It is for this reason that the ruling party itself refuses to commit to a “plan” that consists of something more than a list of supposedly good intentions.
Unlike the Kirchnerists, who enjoy power without worrying too much about the consequences for the country of the measures they take, since their priorities are different and it seems enough to them to endorse all the bad things on the enemies of the people temporarily led by Mauricio Macri, The leaders of Together for Change fear being judged by the concrete results of the measures that they would be constrained to take. They prefer to be in the opposition; it is your comfort zone.
Obsessive internism is not the monopoly of the UCR. Neither is it of the Pro and other factions of the coalition formed by Macri. It is a form of escapism that affects the behavior of the political class as a whole, hence the widespread feeling that the “corporation” or “caste”, whose members are much more interested in their relationship with their fellow men than in anything else , it has become so far removed from the rest of the population that it lives in an alternate universe.
For the rest, over the years they have learned that it is much more convenient for them to get along with those who are in a position to distribute positions than it would be for them to dedicate themselves to “solving the problems of the people”; Experience has taught them that the electorate has become accustomed to rewarding the sellers of easy illusions and harshly punishing those who dare not only to speak of the need to carry out unsympathetic reforms to halt the fall of the country but also to imply that given the opportunity is what they would do. The fact that the international consensus is that without such reforms Argentina will have no future does not worry them.
Even more than in other parts of the world, all the activity of those who make up the political class seems typical of a great national internal that serves to distract the participants from a crisis that continues to worsen. For the ruling party, the dispute between Cristina and Alberto on the one hand and Macri and his sympathizers on the other is the only thing that really matters, which is why the Kirchnerists took advantage of the International Monetary Fund report on the gigantic loan that in 2018 they made to Argentina to hold the macristas responsible for the atrocious state of the country’s economy without paying any attention to the allusions to the need that, in order to reach an agreement with the organization, the current government would have to elaborate something similar to a coherent plan that It will have the broad support of a good part of the political arc.
The fact that the Fund’s technicians have felt guilty of overestimating Macri’s ability to achieve his objectives does not mean that they trust Alberto and Cristina more. When they spoke of Macri’s “limited political space”, they were referring to how terribly difficult it would have been for him to push forward an ambitious structural reform program in a society where the opposition at that time was led by the former president. From the point of view of the IMF, and that of the markets and virtually all politicians in the developed world, the failure of a government that they believed was relatively rational, while reluctant to acknowledge the magnitude of the problems it faced, means that Argentina’s eternal crisis has sociopolitical roots that are much deeper than they had imagined.
Although the developed countries that the IMF represents do not want to “break” with Argentina, it is evident that they are bothered by the resistance of their leaders to collaborate with any economic plan that they would be willing to sign. The frustration they feel is shared not only by the majority of the country’s inhabitants but also by almost all the politicians themselves who, after being convinced that it would be ridiculous to include them among those responsible for the disaster, speak as opponents.
This is what the Kirchnerist militants are doing, who, in the case of Cristina and her unconditional, insist that because in their opinion the macristas were the authors of the economic mess, they should take charge of it; As long as the loss of power did not have painful legal consequences, Cristina and company would love for someone like Horacio Rodríguez Larreta or, better yet, Macri himself, to move into the Casa Rosada before the crisis entered another phase explosive than the current one. It is understood; they are natural opponents who are only comfortable when they can furiously criticize the local or global status quo.
Argentina is far from being the only democratic country in which it is common for those who sometimes make up a substantial majority to have become accustomed to asking for the impossible, a propensity that many politicians often take advantage of by assuring them that, if it were not for the wickedness of their rivals, they would achieve everything they are claiming. They lie but, as Carlos Menem confessed, “if I said what I was going to do, no one would vote for me.” Also, on one occasion, the then President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, stated that “we all know what to do, but we don’t know how to get re-elected after doing it.” To solve the problem to which he alluded, the architects of the European Union managed to isolate key decision makers so much from voters that they would not need to worry about their reaction; over time, the resulting democratic deficit provided the British with a valid pretext to ranch apart.
Although Argentina will not be able to emulate the EU so that politicians, provided they know “what to do”, can do it without running the risk of falling victim to enraged mobs, for decades they consented to military coups by assuming that the uniformed they could do the economic “dirty work” because they wouldn’t have to pay attention to opinion polls. If they had wanted to, with the help of the unions they could have defended what everyone called “civil democracy” by promoting a general strike for an indefinite period, but it did not occur to them to try. Be that as it may, the era of military interregnals ended not because of brutal human rights violations but because, when it came to managing the economy, the military shared the same culture as the politicians.
Regrettably, unless said culture is soon consigned to the garbage basket in which countless failed political projects have been piled up, Argentine society will continue to resemble an artifact programmed to self-destruct, like that painting by the artist Banksy that After selling for more than a million dollars at the Sotheby’s auction house, to the amazement of the attending public it passed through a shredder hidden in the frame that tore it to shreds.
