A few days before the primary elections, Pablo Avelluto wrote the following: “Some are excited to believe that from the Together for Change defeated in 2019, the great right-wing Argentine front that they longed for has been born. The party of order and force, literally. A maximalist force that, if it is not capable of changing everything, prefers not to change anything. The PRO is not, or should not be, or should not become the conservative party of the 21st century. Likewise, Together for Change should not become a right-wing coalition either. We are not and were not that,” he said in Seúl magazine, where he expressed his preference for Horacio Rodríguez Larreta in the medium that functions as the house organ of the coalition.
The text of the former Minister of Culture and then close friend of Mauricio Macri – he worked with him on the two books that he published after the administration – synthesized an idea that, despite the triumph within Bullrich, still persists in many historical figures of the party. : that her leadership in the PRO is more an accident of history than a natural continuity. That of the coalition that came to power in 2015 presenting Macri as the Barack Obama of these latitudes, of the space as the Latinized European social democracy, that of that imprint of a new party that came with the balloon revolution and the joy remains little and nothing.
That someone who began in revolutionary Peronism and then went through various political spaces does not connect with the original ethos of the PRO. And that is the reason, before any other, why they got fewer votes than Milei in August: a crisis of meaning that makes the building grow crooked from its foundations, the other side of the coin that makes Bullrich seem out of profile in the final stretch of the race. “And it is most likely that Together for Change will come out third, I have never seen anyone who proposes adjustment and sacrifices and wins the elections,” Jaime Durán Barba launched in an interview with Radio Perfil that caused sting throughout the coalition. The fear of not entering the ballot is what keeps many people awake at night.
The candidate, of course, has a different vision. “It seems to me that she says that I embody that imprint of the new party but I also embody other elements that are very important in this election. Changes must be made to the country that require a lot of courage and a lot of firmness. And in that sense, the contribution that I make to the PRO is a leadership with strength, with conviction, which was something that perhaps was a weak point, an Achilles heel. I think that’s why I was also able to win the internal one, which was David against Goliath. People saw that the change had to be profound, that to make a change in Argentina you have to dare to step on hurdles and jump over obstacles. “I brought to the PRO a type of leadership that is more combative and stronger.”
Mazes
It is at this crossroads that all the others are set up. Some who know Macri and Bullrich very well say that when the former gave her the presidency of the PRO, after the defeat in 2019, it was not to enthrone her as his dolphin, but rather the opposite: give her a place of almost no relevance. (something that is proven by the fact that almost no one knows who the president of the party was before her) to continue having his hand on the helm.
But, Chapulín Colorado could say, they did not have Bullrich’s cunning. She, surrounded at that time by a team of less than five people – among whom were Juan Pablo Arenaza, today the head of her campaign – and with only her “last salary as Minister of Security” in hand, she clung to the empty shell that was that position and catapulted from there. Thus she managed, four years later, to win the election against the head of the Buenos Aires government, something that for the majority of the red circle was totally impossible some time ago.
“There is something that is happening, people really want change and I think I can represent that. I am going to be the next president,” Bullrich swore since the end of 2020. Today, despite the defeat of his team in the PASO, he continues to think the same.
However, his figure still faces several challenges. In addition to the new imprint that he seeks to give to the space – for which it remains to be seen if it is something that the historic voters of Together for Change are looking for or if faced with this new alternative they will prefer to emigrate to La Libertad Avanza – there is the weight of Mauricio Macri . “We have to stop being prisoners of him”she launched in an interview, and the entire coalition felt the impact.
She was putting into words an old dispute that she has had with the former president since the moment he was given the empty position of the PRO, which was strengthened when in the 2021 legislative elections the former president did not support her and went to Europe. It’s a fight between bosses for control. From both sides they assure that, although the tension has now decreased, the splinters in the weeks after the internal ones were harsh
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Macri praised Milei in public that went down badly in several sectors (“that flirting confuses the voter a lot,” stated Alfonso Prat Gay) and hit Bullrich in a sensitive place: they were delicate moments where a new approach was being defined for the latter. section of the campaign. Some even talk about a personal settlement between Macri and the candidate, when the PRO founder was still on the other side of the world at his bridge tournament. In any case, from both tribes they consider it a closed issue, and they put as proof the interview of the former president in TN, where he came out to clarify her position in favor of her.
The Bullrich team says that they have already adjusted to the post-STEP blow. That after a difficult first ten days they managed to convince the economist Carlos Melconian to take a step forward – although many would like to see him even more forceful in his criticism of Milei – and to shape a new approach to capturing votes.
Add to the field Santiago Kovadloff at the head of a team dedicated to “human issues” has to do with that: they think he can capture the vote of the elderly, a segment in which the philosopher is a well-known figure. In addition to the older public, they think that Bullrich can grow among women and also in some particular areas, such as Mendoza, Córdoba and the Federal Capital. “In the surveys it appears that the safest option to end Kirchnerism is Patricia. Several votes from Milei, they are going to come here”they say.
All or nothing
Those who know Bullrich, critics and friends, say that she always dreamed of sitting in Rivadavia’s chair. “She is hungry for power”was defined by his unauthorized biographer, the journalist Ricardo Ragendorfer -author of “Patricia, from the armed struggle to Security”-, in ahe busy talk at the 11th Book Festival of the University of Quilmes. That vocation, that “all or nothing” that makes PRO purists itch, some trace back to his time as a Montonera militant. They were the leaden years in Argentina, and getting into politics really meant risking your life. “And she was a flower of Montonera,” her teacher in the “organization” Mauricio Zarzuela told NOTICIAS.
In that 2017 interview, Bullrich’s political mentor revealed that she always carried “a bandolier with two revolvers on her waist.” And that she even made her grandmother’s country house in Los Toldos available to her – a place where Bullrich still goes to spend the summers, out of sight – to do shooting practice. The ranch is part of its aristocratic lineage, which dates back to Juan Martín de Pueyrredón, who was Supreme Director of the Provinces of the Río de La Plata.
Half a century, three marriages, a son (Francisco, from his relationship with Marcelo “Pancho” Langieri, a sociologist who was Rodolfo Galimberti’s secretary) and three grandchildren later, Bullrich seems to have changed few things. YesHis dedication to politics, the one that made him issue that dire warning to his current partner on the first date, did not change an inch. As she says, it’s black or white. And so goes Bullrich. Go for the Presidency. Go for everything. Because otherwise it’s nothing.
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