Claudio Poggi was born in Córdoba, but in the mid-80s he settled in San Luis, where, between 2011 and 2015, he was already governor of the province. He made that leap being the chief of staff of Alberto Rodríguez Saá, who, since he had been in power for two terms and could not be re-elected, chose Poggi as his dauphin. That is to say that his political origins were in the heat of the San Luis brothers who have ruled San Luis for 40 years.
The vicissitudes of life made Poggi end up today in the opposition and winning the province in alliance with the PRO and the UCR. The shock of reality was so strong that Governor Alberto Rodríguez Saá, at the close of this edition, had still not recognized the victory of his former ally. Something similar to Donald Trump or Jair Bolsonaro after losing the elections.
From the moment his candidacy was raised, Poggi had a high chance of being elected because he started from a high base, which he had achieved in 2019, when he had presented himself as a candidate for governor against Alberto Rodríguez Saá. On that occasion he obtained 34% of the votes allied with the UCR and the PRO. “El Alberto” had gotten 42%. And the rest? “El Adolfo”, his brother, had come out third with 22%. Last Sunday, Poggi won with about 53%. Where did he get what he lacked? A key ally for the victory was precisely “el Adolfo” Rodríguez Saá, who had fought with his younger brother for many years, and who faced him for the first time in that 2019 election. This was the second.
In this election, “el Adolfo” worked actively for Poggi, to such an extent that he told each leader of his space with his characteristic San Luis tune: “Each vote we get is worth two, because it is one for us and one less.” for Alberto. In the end, he managed to transfer almost all of the votes from him to the winner and they were more than enough to guarantee victory.
Past. Poggi graduated as an accountant at the National University of Río Cuarto, where he met his wife, Sandra Correa from San Luis. After receiving their degrees, they both moved to San Luis, where the novice accountant began a political career with the Rodríguez Saa family. He made his debut with Adolfo, first as a representative of San Luis in the Federal Investment Council (CFI), in the early 1990s, then between 1995 and 1999 he was Undersecretary of Finance, and from 1999 to 2001 he was in charge of the Ministry of Finance and Public Works of the province. During the week that Adolfo Rodríguez Saá was president of the Nation, on an interim basis, in December 2001, he added him to his work team as undersecretary of Interministerial Coordination of the Chief of Staff. Upon returning to the province, he took over the Ministry of Economy.
In the stage of Alberto Rodríguez Saa, governor, he was a national deputy between 2003 and 2009, but with some licenses to take charge of the Ministry of Public Works first and of Tourism later. Already being a key gear in the political assembly of Albertismo San Luis, in 2009 he was a candidate in the provincial legislatures to later take over the presidency of the Chamber. He only lasted seven months in office, because in mid-2010 “Alberto” called him to take over as his chief of staff, a position he held until he was elected governor in 2011, sponsored by the youngest of the Saá brothers. He lasted only one period, because “Alberto” wanted to return to power and Poggi had to settle for a candidacy for national deputy. By then he had already been bitten by the power bug and started working for his own project. In 2016 he set up his own provincial party called Avanzar, with which he began to compete as an opponent of the Rodríguez Saá. In 2017, he faced Adolfo for the position of senator and lost, but when he came second, he entered for the minority and managed to land in the National Congress, without knowing that his competitor at that time would today be a key ally in his arrival at the governorship.
In public he tries not to appear close to Adolfo, because, being allied with the radicals and the PRO, the presence of a Rodríguez Saá in his campaign made noise, but in San Luis the entire political class knows that without the help of the greatest of brothers it would not have been possible to win.
The Rodríguez Saá were lords and masters of the province from 1983 to the present and could have continued to hold power for a while longer if they had not fallen out. An end that could be seen on the horizon, for anyone who has read the poem “La vuelta del Martín Fierro”, by José Hernández: “Brothers be united, because that is the first law; have a true union at any time, because if they fight among themselves, those from ‘outside’ will devour them”.
