Cristina Kirchner and Alberto Fernandez They are chatting in the Néstor Kirchner Municipal Park, in Merlo. They talk, strategize, brainstorm each other’s speeches, and laugh. They are having a good time, and the future looks more than promising. From that moment, on May 25, 2019, everything happened. Now both do not even speak to each other and the government they arrived at is fractured and involved in a political and economic crisis. The conclave they had Eduardo de Pedro, Sergio Massa, Axel Kicillof, Buenos Aires mayors and national ministers in the same park where four years ago the formula that would later win was presented in public is irrefutable proof.
The meeting, in the last hours of Tuesday the 31st, took place after a week of maximum escalation within the Frente de Todos, days in which “Wado” treated Alberto “not having codes”, he self-postulated as a candidate, and received harsh responses from albertismo. That summit, which was followed with great attention -beginning with the President and the Vice-, left space in a state of shock and in full uncertainty. There are less than five months left for the closing of the lists and, contrary to the first act in Merlo, the future seems dark and uncertain.
Pontius Pilate
The summit in Merlo was crossed by several political and media operations. You have to understand the climate in which you arrived at the meeting. Beyond the latest crossings, which at one point are anecdotal, there is a tectonic layer that is beginning to shake the foundations of space, and that is closely linked with the proximity of the elections but also with the fatigue accumulated after years of fighting. and of management. It is that now, at a time when the members of the Government are fed up with each other, no one keeps the forms anymore.
The Minister of the Interior shot the President with a cannon, and he did so through a newsletter that his people sent to various media, a rather peculiar method that makes it clear that no one cares anymore about covering up their tracks. Victoria Tolosa Paz and Anibal Fernandezfellow Cabinet members, answered him with even more harshness and, without euphemisms, they invited him to retire from the government if you disagree with Alberto. Then Andrés Larroque and Máximo Kirchner joined, with more criticism of Alberto in two reports. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Behind the scenes, the crossovers are starker. Kicillof is no longer shown in public with the President in the acts carried out by the president in the province he governs. From the Casa Rosada they assure that they always invite him, while close to the governor they say that these invitations always arrive on time, like when someone is invited but without any real intention of them showing up.
It is one version against the other, a backstabbing modus operandi that became customary. The week prior to the meeting in Merlo, Kirchernismo had spread the version that Albertismo had filled Lula’s agenda with activities so that there would not be a crossover between the Brazilian and Cristina, while the other part of the crack denied that version and he made it run on his own that the neighboring president supports Alberto for re-election. Who tells the truth and who lies? Or are they all half truths?
fragile mode
This scenario was repeated in Merlo, but in a much starker way. Tuesday morning, Alberto Fernandez She picked up the phone to ask her Minister of Social Development for a special favor. She wanted to entrust him to go on “her behalf” of her to the date night, as a way to quell the fire that had started.
The president was aware that the joint presence of Massa with Larroque and Máximo, his two great detractors, and of Wado and Kicillof, with whom he has a frozen relationship, was going to be read as a virtual launch of one of them, which de facto was giving it out of the presidential race. That is why he entrusted Tolosa Paz, one of his media swords, to go, to mark his presence but also with the intention of turning the other cheek. But the minister said she had other plans in place beforehand and avoided the invitation, which was surely lucky for everyone: those who know her say that she rarely keeps what she thinks, and that De Pedro is between her eyebrows.
With Monday’s newspaper, it was a wise decision. Because what was proposed at first as a way to appease the inmate and show a unit photo, later became one more plot that reignited the furies. Kirchnerism circulated the idea that the President had not even been invited, with the express idea of ridiculing him in public. From La Rosada they show as proof that this was not the case the fact that Alberto monitored the meeting and, despite the fact that Tolosa Paz did not end up going, he sent two of his ministers (the one for Habitat, Santiago Maggiotti, and the one for Public Works, the Albertist Gabriel Katopodis). “That is one more vile operation”, they returned near Alberto, in another chapter of exhausted patience.
However, the debate on the invitation to the President was the least of the echoes left by the event in Merlo. The great theme, also cleverly put to circulate among the red circle, was the idea that the image of family that Merlo left forced the President to publicly desist from his re-election intentions and call the much-mentioned political table to decide the steps to be taken. continue.
What happened next could be study material for students of sociology or political science. The day after the summit in Merlo, Wednesday the 1st, various media and communicators picked up an idea that was circulating: that Alberto “had accepted” to resign his intentions, and that finally he had given in to the pressure and was going to call that assembly to define the candidacies and the strategy to follow. The spokesperson was consulted about this. Gabriela Cerrutti, which confirmed that this issue was in the folder. Now, what was never clarified from La Rosada was that Alberto had accepted that idea a while ago. In fact, this medium published that the President had the idea of convening that table in a November edition. It was not exactly how Kirchnerism imagined it -Fernández agreed to hold a meeting in which the strategy was defined, but not governance, and also did not offer his resignation from the candidacy as demanded by the opposite side-, but what is remarkable is that Yes, that decision had been made a while ago.
Not having managed to communicate – was it not wanted or could not? – that decision meant to the President that today the red circle sees him more weakened. Symptomatic of a government locked in a maze. In any case, Albertismo is blunt about the future of the President. “If someone better appears, he will not have any problem getting off, but until then he will continue in the race.”
TOcoming from the middle
About Sergio Massa several ghosts weigh. One is his famous tardiness. The Merlo meeting was no exception: the first mayors arrived at 6:30 p.m., the time stipulated for the meeting, and the Minister of Economy landed after 9:00 p.m., almost when the barbecue was served on the table. The man arrived accompanied by his peers in the Cabinet, gave a few words after those given by the host mayor Gustavo Menéndez -Massa was not very original and said that it was not a “time for internships” and asked for unity-, and then left stayed up very late. In fact, the dozen attendees at the Néstor Kirchner Park left, a little after twelve, and left Kicillof, Massa and Máximo talking alone. The talk of that conclave was kept under lock and key.
However, what mattered least about the meeting were the words. It is that what remained of Merlo the most was his gestures: a governor, La Cámpora and the majority of mayors behind Massa. It was not even necessary to clarify it, since everything gave the impression that the bulk of the space was there supporting the eventual candidacy of the minister. It is a complex invitation, from which Massa leaves and enters according to the moment.
In fact, it was the massismo itself that was in charge of lowering the smoke after the family photo began to go viral among the cell phones of members of the Government. From the trench of the Minister of Economy, several elements are beginning to be outlined by which the could not be a candidate, and therefore to be guided by the image is to fall into a short-term fallacy. The thesis that the family does not allow him to present himself remains firm, but now several elements are also beginning to emerge, in tune with the reality that shows that inflation is not falling as the Tigrense expected.
They say that for a minister of the Economy, running for a candidacy is almost impossible, because for that he should either resign from his position -which would de facto shake the economy for bad- or continue and submit to a market coup complicating reality. and therefore to the candidacy. They also point to history as proof: they say that none of Massa’s predecessors in that position who have run for President had a good fate. Is it all a decoy? It is difficult to know in this government of war without quarter.
