Everything would be so much easier if he was right Horacio Rodriguez Larreta and the disastrous situation in which the country finds itself was the product of “the crack”, the “divisions”, and “the fights” that keep the leaders of the different political factions busy. In such a case, it would suffice for the leaders and their followers to get used to friendly dialogue for Argentina to leave behind almost a century of decadence, since what it would need to begin to recover from its wounds would be a great national agreement signed by politicians, trade unionists and representatives of the most important economic and social sectors.
Although at this point virtually everyone will understand that it is an illusion because there is no way to reconcile the interests of the characters who would have to participate in an eventual dialogue table, for many the proposal of the mayor of Buenos Aires sounds attractive and could help him add votes. . Often those who seek to measure what is happening in the collective mind inform us that the majority is fed up with the brawls carried out by politicians of all kinds that do not serve to solve any pressing problem.
Be that as it may, by attacking “the crack” that here, as in almost all other countries, divides the politicized, Rodríguez Larreta widened the one that he afflicts with his own “space” in which “warm people” like him face ” tough”, such as Patricia Bullrich and, presumably, the elusive Mauricio Macri, who take it for granted that a government of the characteristics that it seems to want to lead would be incapable of carrying out the drastic reforms that they consider essential for the country to take better advantage of the human capital, and the natural resources, which it still conserves.
Such skeptics might also attribute the country’s dismal performance in recent decades to the willingness of too many politicians to cling to a consensus that, in practical terms, was always bound to have catastrophic consequences. By putting the desire to avoid conflicts that could harm them before their own convictions, those who did not believe in the official truths backed by the majority in power collaborated with those who would make Argentina what some would describe as the “greatest failure of the 20th century.”
From the point of view of those who take “the crack” for a natural phenomenon and in some way positive, the dreamed resurgence will necessarily be the work of an intense minority. They know that Argentine conservatism is a powerful monster with a thousand heads, many of which hide behind progressive masks and that, in order to defeat it, a reformist government would have to be willing to take measures that a multitude of sectoral operators would try to frustrate because they are determined. to defend their “conquests” at any cost to others. While most will swear to be in favor of a Copernican change that would radically transform the country, there is no agreement on who deserves to be among the losers.
As long as the anti-politics of Javier Milei does not ruin everything -which, if he succeeds, could inaugurate a stage, perhaps very brief, of institutional anarchy until a Legislative Assembly intervenes-, or, to the general surprise, a new mutation breaks out. Peronist who manages to excite the electorate, the next president of the Republic will emerge from the ranks of Together for Change.
Although it would seem that Rodríguez Larreta is still leading the race, in recent months he has lost momentum as fears spread that his alleged lukewarmness would make him unable to master the increasingly chaotic economic emergency that is behind the tragic social drama that day after day is claiming more victims. In times of crisis, those who manage to radiate an image of strength tend to have an advantage, which, needless to say, can be very dangerous if, as has often happened not only here but also in the rest of the world, those thus benefited turn out to be narcissistic authoritarians convinced of their own rightness.
Those concerned about the excessively conciliatory preaching of Rodríguez Larreta and others insist that it is absurd to minimize the importance of the differences that exist between Kirchnerism and those movements, right, center or left, that respect not only the Constitution but also a set of fundamental moral principles. Is it possible, they ask, to assume a position of neutrality in the face of corruption, treating it as a picturesque eccentricity that must be tolerated? Is kleptocracy, a modality that is typical of underdeveloped societies accustomed to being ruled by thieves, an acceptable political alternative in a thoroughgoing republican democracy? Those Kirchnerists who believe that Cristina was indeed guilty of the crimes for which a court sentenced her to six years in prison do not hesitate to vindicate her, a verdict that the Supreme Court has not yet ratified.
Because it is the most notorious “crack” that separates the Kirchnerists from the rest, insinuating that it should be ignored does not help. Trying to buy peace by offering amnesty for the boss and her accomplices in exchange for a certain passivity would only discredit a government supposedly committed to the rule of law in the eyes of the citizenry and also of the rest of the Western world. Thus, to increase the proportion of sincerely democratic legislators, a more realistic option would be to isolate Kirchnerism by surrounding it with a cordon sanitaire, as is done in some European countries with movements that are considered dangerous.
In any case, no matter how “dialogue-like” Juntos por el Cambio is, it would be useless to hope that such an attitude would serve to soften Cristina and her faithful. They understand very well that the political power they managed to build was based on their remarkable ability to mobilize the resentment felt by many people. To be more specific, they trust that, by making themselves felt the adjustments that the next government will be constrained to apply, they will be given ever larger supplies of their most profitable raw material. A government that agrees with those who think this way would have to settle for “managing the crisis”, since it would be foreseeable that any attempt to leave it behind would lead to extremely negative reactions from those who are specialists in making the misery of others a very lucrative business. only commercial but also political. Now, it is one thing to dress up as a sheep for the duration of an electoral campaign and quite another to continue behaving like one after arming yourself with the presidential pencil. Even if Rodríguez Larreta does not seem to have many wolf genes, if Alberto Fernández were to succeed, he would find himself in a situation that would surely force him to act as if he possessed them in abundance. At times, he hints that he is aware of the magnitude of the challenge that would await him, hence the sporadic allusions to the flurry of shocking measures he would order in the first hours of his hypothetical tenure, but perhaps it would be in his interest to warn people that, While calm dialogue is always better than loud, often meaningless yelling, there are times when softness is worse than harshness.
The electoral calendar plays against the country by effectively institutionalizing internalism. In both coalitions and their satellites, those who in one way or another need to secure a permanent place in the big political corporation feel compelled to continue competing with their partners, which does much to make the group to which they belong “a bag of cats.” ”. It would have agreed, then, that at least Together for Change organized and held its own primaries autonomously, as the great parties of all other democracies do, to then face the PASO and the genuine elections with the candidate or presidential candidate and his companions already selected.
As things are, several more months of frantic internalism await the country in which those aspiring to move into the Casa Rosada will try to denigrate their rivals without harming themselves. From time to time, Together for Change congratulate themselves that, despite everything that has happened, the coalition has remained united, but the risk remains that the differences will prove insurmountable or that one word too many will have destructive consequences. Unfortunately, the institutional model that has been improvised makes it very difficult for ambitious politicians to coexist in specific “spaces” who, even when they share certain basic convictions, would militarize in different groups if circumstances were different. If Argentina were a “normal country”, Rodríguez Larreta, radicals like Martín Lousteau and their adherents would integrate a broad center-left party, while Macri, Bullrich and theirs would lead another of the center-right, but it happens that the enduring popularity of Peronism, cohesive Lately, due to Kirchnerism’s insatiable vocation for power, it has prevented democratic politics from evolving here as in other countries with a similar culture.
