This note has an advantage over others. It is that in this case you can guess, almost with mathematical precision, what those who read it are going to think or say about it, especially if they are among those who believe, support or militate in Kirchnerism. The words may vary but the idea will be the same: “Again they consider Cristina retired”. The idea of the vice president as a political phoenix, who rises again and again, is repeated in the K constellation, and in fact has proven to be true during the last decades. It is also true that the vast majority of the red circle has prophesied CFK’s withdrawal hundreds of times, and several have even worked to make it happen.
Among those who discuss the thesis of this cover will be those who not only do so with their hearts but also with data. They are going to rightly say that Kirchnerism lost in the elections of 2009, 2013 and 2015 but despite all that it won in 2019 and is still valid, that CFK is one of the two people in the country – the other is playing bridge in Italy – that they can summon crowds with just a tweet or that La Cámpora is the largest political space in Argentina.
All of this is real. But it is also true that history is not static, that time passes and that leadership does not last forever, especially if the results do not accompany it. This is the case of the former president and the space that she commands. The most important political movement of this century went into decline.
It wasn’t magic. The slow deterioration of Kirchnerism is a phenomenon that it is difficult to put a start date. It has to do with the crisis of the Frente de Todos, but it precedes and exceeds it. Perhaps someone traces the beginning of the decline to the moment in which the Chief decided to appoint a candidate, looked askance by many of her own, without consulting anyone. Others could say that it has to do with the fact that after that 4,200,000 votes were lost in the next election, or that, simply, it is impossible to get rid of the government that she created and that is reaching record levels of inflation. All these ideas could be valid, but one thing is clear: a turning point is the resignation of Máximo Kirchner as head of the block in Deputies and then the refusal of Kirchnerism to support the agreement with the IMF. What until then was a sensation perceived by those who are within that space, or a reality that was only noticeable in some specific issues, rushed like an avalanche. Since then, things have happened.
– Cristina and her son played hard -NOTICIAS has verified at least two direct interventions of her before deputies to force them to change their vote- in the debate for the agreement. Despite that, and all the power they were both supposed to have, the results were more than poor: Of the 112 deputies of the Frente de Todos, CFK and Máximo only managed to convince 28 to vote against. To take dimension: the difference of Kirchnerism – taking into account its history, its militants and the boxes they control – compared to that of the left is only 24 deputies. In the Senate, the sequence was repeated: of the 35 FDT senators, only 13 responded.
– Cristina not only lost the leadership of the block of Deputies. He also lost automatic control of the Senateas demonstrated when he had to adjourn the session scheduled for Wednesday the 30th by the Council of the Judiciary.
– The battle for the agreement, and the harsh criticism that Kirchnerism poured on the President, led to the occurrence of an unprecedented phenomenon. Cristinistas of the first hour such as Aníbal Fernández, Luis D’Elía (who shared a NEWS note on his networks in which this phenomenon was discussed and received several criticisms from his followers), Agustín Rossi and Jorge Ferraresi they separated from the Chief, ignored her authority and asked to support the President. To this group of officials and politicians was added a symptomatic support from intellectuals and journalists, also historical Kirchnerists, such as Eduardo Aliverti, Edgardo Mocca, Ricardo Forster, Jorge Alemán, Dora Barrancos. Although Roberto Navarro did not join this group, he did warn: “Beware that what is breaking is not only the Front of All, Kirchnerism is breaking.”
– The war over the IMF also left another revelation. As Kirchnerism was in charge of clarifying on repeated occasions, it was the economic team led by Martín Guzmán that monopolized the negotiations. This public complaint, previously understood as bravado, was actually shown to be a display of political weakness: CFK and his people were left out of the structural decisions of the economyand except for secondary positions -such as the Secretary of Energy or Commerce-, this area, the most transcendental of a government, is controlled exclusively by Albertism.
– The refusal of the agreement did not lead to an official break with the Front of All, but it did achieve something hitherto unprecedented. It is that the decision of Kirchnerism to go against the presidential decisions finally led to for Alberto Fernández to declare independence. He no longer speaks with CFK and challenges her in public, he tells the intermediaries -still active- between the two that he does not want to convene the much-requested political table and quotes Perón (“whoever wants to hear, let him hear, whoever wants to follow, follow ”), and he no longer consults Kirchernism when making strategic decisions – the “war” against inflation, for example, was a one hundred percent albertist move. That is to say: although he controls several officials, CFK stayed outside the top of the Executive Branch. Alberto’s threat to call a PASO in 2023 would also mean that she also lost the monopoly on the election of candidates. “That’s it, from here until he ends his mandate, he’s going to run for his,” a presidential sidekick is encouraged. Faced with this reality, Andrés Larroque launched a criticism that sounded more like a demonstration of impotence: “He cannot govern with five friends.”
– The shrapnel even climbed into La Cámpora. Eduardo De Pedro spoke in favor of the agreement, showing differences with the position of Máximo, to whom he conveyed that he did not share his decision. That earned him a cataract of recriminations in public and in private. “’Wado’ is the same as Alberto, it’s amen, everything the President says he says is fine”, launched Hebe de Bonafini. There are several in the government who are convinced that behind the dart of the founder of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo is the hard wing of La Cámpora, which for some time has looked askance at the approach of the Minister of the Interior with the red circle and distrusts the growth of “ Wado” in the polls and in his media appearances. In La Cámpora, in addition, they are lamenting in these hours for another loss: it is the construction that, since in 2017 he convinced his mother to put aside his historical resistance and ally himself with the Buenos Aires mayors, Máximo had done as one more politician rememberer than CFK, willing to dialogue with those from the sidewalk across the street or with the red circle. The idea, repeated by Sergio Massa, that he looks “more like Nestor than Cristina”, expired after the door slammed and he resigned. Máximo’s furcio against the Buenos Aires voters -he said that they tended to vote for “those who want to hide what the dictatorship did”, and thus brought about a silent anger from the City’s Kirchnerism- only confirmed his loss of timing, to which It also adds a total absence of drinkable candidates within the field.
– CFK lost something intangible but just as important. The vice president had already expressed her disagreement with the government in various ways before the vote for the agreement: public letters, darts in acts, poisonous tuis, and even with a threat of resignations from her officials. Her latent threat was from her or that they paid attention to her or that she got off the ship, with the pretense that it would sink without her. But this idea is over: despite everything that happened, that CFK has already clarified that she no longer speaks with Alberto, the management continued. The last thing Cristina lost is the illusion that it could generate a crisis of governability if their wishes were not fulfilled. He lost the red button and also showed that, even if he doesn’t want it, he can’t leave the Front of All. He has no where.
Attitude question. What has been listed so far is nothing more than data and facts that have already happened. Even CFK knows how delicate his political situation is. After remaining in the minority in his position regarding the agreement – which, according to polls, has 75 or 80% approval among society – he held an unexpected meeting of an hour and twenty with the United States ambassador . “He realizes that he was left as marginal and is sent with this play”, launches a cristinista who regretfully follows his last movements.
From now on questions arise. For example: can the move of advance the elections in the province of Buenos Aires to take it off the nationals? This is a strategy that the field brains have been working on, identical to the one that María Eugenia Vidal had tried to do in 2015 before Marcos Peña and Jaime Durán Barba were banned. The idea, in addition to demonstrating once again that history repeats itself as a mockery, speaks of the fragile situation of Kirchnerism: the proposal is no longer to take heaven by storm but to dream of retaining the Province. In any case, it sounds impossible: Kicillof has a very high negative image, he has just lost in 2021 and he would also need a law voted in the Buenos Aires Legislature -where he does not have a majority- to modify the dates. The latter is what the President’s chief adviser, Juan Manuel Olmos, is repeating these days to calm things down.
A necessary clarification. The decline of Kirchnerism does not mean that it does not continue to retain a very important flow of votes -between 20 and 22 percent, one of the most important consultants in the country is encouraged to cast, on what CFK would get if there were an imminent election-, but It shows that Cristina perforated her historical floor, which was between 30 and 35 points. What follows is downhill.
test 2023? What happened on Sunday the 27th was much more than an inmate of the Justicialist Party in San Isidro. Because the overwhelming victory -70 to 30- of the list of José Luis Cáceres and Fernando “Pato” Galmarini -father of Malena, head of Aysa, and Sebastián, director of Banco Provincia-, supported by Sergio Massa and by Kirchnerism, against The one sponsored by Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero means much more than a mere election of authorities in the PJ. First, it is symptomatic of the situation of the Frente de Todos: the three tribes of the coalition could not get along and went to an intense internal in which the albertismo was severely defeated. But the most important thing about the event was what it could indicate about the future. At least that’s how Cristina Kirchner and her son Máximo de Ella understood it, who followed the vote closely and even picked up the phone to congratulate the winners. Is it a preview of an alliance that could happen in 2023? “Today seems to indicate that, but that’s today’s photo. There is still a lot left. What is clear is that it is unusual that Cafiero, being Chancellor and having more than 10 of his officials in the Government, has not been able to win even one inmate from San Isidro. In another government he would have already left”, they say in the massismo. The winning list had been put together after long negotiations between Kirchnerist Teresa García and Sebastián Galmarini.
Sergio Massa, meanwhile, keeps his agenda full. On Tuesday the 29th he attended an event where something unprecedented happened. It is that the Tigrense, who historically avoided the cameras in the company of his friend Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, smiled for the flashes next to the mayor of Buenos Aires. The photo quickly went viral and was the talk of the red circle. In addition to attending the cocktails, the president of the Chamber of Deputies keeps the link with Máximo Kirchner alive -unlike the President who never spoke to him again after his resignation- and returned to regularly visit the Quinta de Olivos . Player of all courts.
