The meeting with the governor of Corrientes, Gustavo Valdes, occurred on September 21. Weeks had passed since the start of the fires and the escalation of political tension had exposed the National government. Juan Cabandié, the Minister of the Environment, had to assume responsibility: he had to bow his head and coordinate a joint tour of the Iberá Wetlands that served only to calm things down. There weren’t too many practical reasons, it was already late.
Since the fires became one of the main issues on the national agenda, the minister has only made false steps. He was the recipient of the anger and frustrations of a large part of the population, the ideal target of the opposition and the disappointment of the Casa Rosada. An unwanted cocktail.
DISAGREEMENTS
Cabandié’s first setback regarding the fires was his participation in the presidential tour. In Corrientes, the news that the Minister of the Environment was traveling to Barbados while the fire was already beginning to worry, it did not go well at all.
However, the first direct encounter would arise days later with a tweet that echoed even in Pink House. “Most of the producers are affected by the burning to renew pastures of a few. They cause irreparable damage, affecting the entire productive sector, ”he wrote in his account. Cabandie. And the counteroffensive was not long in coming.
The rural entities crossed it: “They want to remove the responsibility that falls to them by blaming others,” criticized the president of the Rural Society, Nicholas Pino. The liaison table supported him. But not even his own banked him: “I do not agree with Cabandié. There are almost 519 thousand hectares affected. The scene is one of war”, Matías Lestani, the Secretary of Agriculture, differed.
Even the President echoed the statement. Alberto Fernandez He could not believe how, in the midst of the crisis, his Environment Minister distributed blame so freely. And he reproached her.
The crosses between the minister and Valdes became so harsh that the governor of Corrientes declared that “the relationship with Cabandie It is cut”. And he gave her a final blow: he revealed that the national official had called him to make an unusual claim, in the midst of the crisis:
“Ask Macri to stop tweeting against me”, released him. “They are concerned about political positioning. I can’t control anyone’s Twitter”, replied the provincial president.
the fights between Nation and Currents they later moved to the administrative plane. Cabandie iHe insists that Valdés was slow to accept the resources that the government offered him in January. The governor assures that the opposite happened, that since November they warned of the worrying situation. Beyond bureaucratic procedures, the State’s response was slow, timeless. At that point, more than 10% of the province had already burned.
The joint photo of the minister and the governor may serve to calm things down. But the anger remains, both outside and inside the government. And it could even cost Cabandié his job if the tension escalates again.
It is that the minister no longer has a network. Since he left La Cámpora, in mid-2018, lost significant support. “It is not the same for Luana Volnovich to make a mistake, as for an official who does not have as many benches,” explains a source from Casa Rosada. Asking him to resign would not cause problems in the coalition. Cabandie knows it.
For now hold on. He sees how the media criticism accumulates, a couple of criminal complaints and some opportunistic official who leaves him more in evidence. “Everyone talks, but I don’t see anyone here,” said Sergio Berni, the Buenos Aires security minister, who was on tour when Cabandié was still shooting with Valdés.
“I DO NOT AGREE WITH CABANDIÉ. THE SCENE IS OF WAR”, SAID MATÍAS LESTANI, SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE.
outbursts
The fires in Corrientes they left him exposed like never before. But it is not the first time that the Minister of Environment is the main protagonist of a controversy.
The first time that the opposition requested his resignation en masse was in 2013, Cabandié was a Buenos Aires legislator and was campaigning to be a national deputy. An agent gave him a traffic ticket and he reprimanded her: “I am more handsome than you. I banked the dictatorship, I am the son of the disappeared”, he insulted her. And then he made a call “so that they apply a corrective, because this is a misplaced one.” Everything was filmed. The then camporista leader did not resign, but the worker was kicked out of the municipality of Lomas de Zamora.
One more complaint of that style was added in recent days. The journalist Rodolfo Herrera He assured that the minister had asked to be “cut” when he worked at C5N, for an interview that was not to his liking. Cabandié denies knowing what he was talking about.
The minister also added displeasure to the President. He was one of the officials who threatened to resign after the poor electoral result of the 2021 legislative elections. One of those who put Alberto Fernández in check.
Besieged by criticism, Cabandié awaits the resolution of the conflict with Corrientes to find out what his fate will be. At the close of this edition, to bring more peace of mind, the President agreed to visit Valdés and tour the province together. It would be a balm for the wound that the minister opened to the government to heal quickly.
