A Gaston Manes he was surprised by what he found when he arrived at the headquarters of the UCR National Committee. his brother, Facundo, was hours away from arriving there for a central meeting for the future of both, in a photo that was supposed to go through all the media in the country. Although there was little time left for the event, the outlook was not encouraging. The place looked like an old, disused barbecue area, with plastic chairs and cold gray walls. But the youngest of the family rolled up his sleeves, picked up the phone and, through a friend, remodeled the place against the clock. The image, in which the neuroscientist was seen surrounded by the popes of radicalism, sitting in leather armchairs as black as the curtains in the background, which contrasted with the red carpet, made a good impression on the establishment. The Adventure of the Maneshis idea of modernizing the party, had begun.
This scene is from the middle of June last year. The scientist hit there, surrounded by Gerardo Morales, Alfredo Cornejo and Martin Losteau, the first step – at least in public – in launching his political career, after months of rumors and speculation. Since then things have happened.
Facundo was one of the great revelations of the 2021 elections, in which he narrowly lost the inmate of Together for Change against Diego Santilliand became one of the visible faces of the UCR’s resurrection. And next to him also grew the figure of Gastón. Rather, thanks to him: it was the younger brother, his off-road operator who assists him both in the circle of his political and media or business relations, the great architect of the candidacy, the one who convinced him to “be encouraged to take the leap” . Now the lawyer Manes was elected president of the radical conventionthe internal body of the party that is going to select a presidential candidate and a government plan for 2023. And if everything goes as he wants, the man who is going to elect that convention is going to be neither more nor less than the same with the one who grew up
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The history of both dates back to the small town of Salto, in the province of Buenos Aires, where Pedro, their father, was the rural doctor. Those who live there swear that to this day there is in the Radical Committee a painting where Alfonsín is seen, then President, visiting Salto, together with the host intendant at that time. Behind the local president appears a young Gastón, 13 years old.
It is that, unlike his brother who is only now making his first weapons in politics, Gastón does have a trajectory as a radical militancy. At the Salto school he set up the student center and later became an adviser to Dante Caputo, Alfonsín’s chancellor that in that government he represented the most progressive wing of radicalism. After the democratic spring Gaston He went to live in England to perfect himself as a lawyer -the place where he got several ideas that he now applies, for example how Anthony Blair, the then British Prime Minister, did to modernize there a party as old as Labor- and on his return he devoted himself full of his career. In 2005 they set up Ineco with his brother, the cognitive neurology institute that ended up serving as a platform for Facundo to start making his first media tours. Where one goes, the other goes.
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The Convention that elected Gastón as his representative it was an event watched by all politics. “The radicals have many differences but in this they are serious, they order themselves. We can’t even sit at a table”, says a historic friend of Alberto’s with a position in the Government. However, where the meeting was followed the most was in the opposition, as the telephone number of the youngest of the manes: Congratulatory messages from Patricia Bullrich, Emilio Monzó and Santilli, among others, arrived on his cell phone.
It is that the irruption of Facundo, in which he also had a lot to do Maximilian Abbot, the new president of Buenos Aires radicalism, shook Together. The clashes they had the manes with larretismo exceed the length of this note, but since the campaign -Santilli was the envoy of the head of the Buenos Aires Government to the Province- the political relationship between the two was strained: on one side they are convinced that one used the state checkbook to win the conflict, and of the other they say that the ego of the brothers is such that it does not allow them to build a united opposition. For now they are debates of points of view, but they will surely escalate next year: Larreta – who did not congratulate Gastón for his recent appointment and manes They are very similar in the sense that they both swear that nothing and no one is going to make them drop from a presidential candidacy, which will be resolved in a STEP. “Both are already trying out the band,” says one of the priests from Together ironically.
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But not everything is peace within radicalism. Facundo’s “messianism”, as some of his critics say, seems to be a double-edged sword: although he leaves many radicals alone in the sense that yes or yes he is going to present himself – some fear that Morales, the governor of Jujuy , close an alliance with Larreta on time and leave his party paying -, on the other side, he is restless. “He doesn’t open the game, he’s very closed, and that’s why he lacks a team and sometimes makes beginner mistakes,” they point out. Two cases are mentioned in that list: that he added to his list in 2021 Joaquin de la Torre as a senator from Buenos Aires for the first electoral section -generating a clash with the radical pope of that place, the shifty Mayor Gustavo Posse-, with the aggravating circumstance that as soon as he arrived at his bench, the man closed an alliance with Macri, and a furcio with Lousteau. Former Economy Minister K put together an event on May 25, in which he, along with Larreta on stage, made official his intention to compete for the City next year. Manes was invited but no one brought him up to speak. “How are you going to take it there so that it is applauding from below to Larretait looks like a worn out one”, complained a radical with ambitions.
But for all this much is missing. Gaston Manes he opened his position as president of the Convention refining ideas to “expand the party” –Paul Javkin, mayor of Rosario, is one of those targeted – and working on the drafting of the government plan. There the economists collaborate with him Martin Rapetto and Marina Dal Poggeto, who together with the envoys of the Alem Foundation -there are several closer to Morales there- are preparing a text that will later be raised to the table of Together. The idea is, if necessary, to condition the future government: they do not want to repeat the experience of 2015 in which the UCR was left as more than a minority partner in the coalition. The Manes go for more.
