After the resignation of Martin Guzman to the Ministry of Economy, Serge Massa He was in charge of clarifying to a handful of journalists that he knew nothing, and that he was away from the decision-making table about the replacement.
“I just got off the field. I was watching tiger, I did not see anything. I just came out and saw the news”, were the words that circulated in an echo. However, it was sensed that the president of the Chamber of Deputies and third shareholder in the Front of All would go to the Quinta de Olivos.
But not. “Massa is not in Olivos. She is not going to Olivos tonight. She goes to her sister’s birthday and follow the situation by phone”, added a close collaborator. The message was unequivocal: “I am not here”.
During the week Sergio Massa had ruled out taking over the Chief of Staff that Juan Manzur would leave vacant at any time to return to the governorship of Tucumán, theoretically worn out in his relationship with Alberto Fernández and without a bench to be his eventual successor: Daniel Scioli and the chaco “Coqui” Capitanich They sound more likely.
Massa explained to his own in that sense, that accepting the Chief of Staff put him directly in the orbit of the president. and lowered the price for an eventual electoral race in 2023. “We talked about it on Thursday with Sergio and it was clear that will not be Chief of Staff to get out of the presidential succession”, endorsed a referent of the Renovating Front.
The tigress insisted that he would only accept Economy, and as long as they gave him the control of other key areas (AFIP and the BCRA), allowing him to disembark with all his equipment. The proposal that he has been holding in front of Alberto Fernandez since Martín Guzmán closed the agreement with the IMF and completed the mission with which he had arrived at the Government.
“Whoever comes has to be able to handle their own ministry. Public attacks and obstacles make it impossible for Argentina to advance. The economic future of Argentina has to do with the internal coalition agreement”, a collaborator close to Martin Guzman who referred to the mood of the minister when leaving the portfolio: “I was not tired, but it was impossible to continue with the management. He felt that I no longer had the power to decide”.
That power of decision and autonomy is what Massa claims. “Sergio wants with him Miguel Peirano, Guillermo Michel and a couple more. if they take it, Pesce, Marco del Pont and Pichichi also come out ”pointed to the massist orbit.
The head of the Renovating Front was very angry with the president when he confirmed Daniel Scioli as head of the Ministry of Production to replace Matias Kulfas (I wanted that place for the Jose Ignacio “Vasco” De Mendiguren). They even say that he could not sleep that night overcome by anger. The president compensated by adding him to the Summit of the Americas and promising changes in the short term.
“They tell him that he is right but they do not pay attention to him”, they insist in their political space. Some referents of the Renovating Front even push for the president of the Chamber of Deputies to resign from that position, and others go further asking the exit of the Front of AllMassa’s own decision kicked, postponing the party’s congress in Mar del Plata pending a decision from the president.
But Alberto Fernandez -and neither does Cristina Kirchner- he was not convinced to give control of the economy to the Tigrense. “Alberto does not plan to summon anyone to make the decision. He told everyone that the decision is going to be made by him, ”they remarked at Casa Rosada. The president would have sounded out Martin Redrado for the position, but the economist would have also put his conditions.
“Redrado wants a pack of 20 laws, which would only come out with the management of Sergio in Deputies ”, they undressed in the massismo, little adept at giving the ex of Luciana Salazar the support he requested. “Redrado is a CFK proposal for the BCRA, and Agis discards it because he has been fighting since 2016 with Axel and CFK,” they continued.
Emmanuel Alvarez Agisdeputy minister of Martín Guzmán during the second presidency of Cristina Kirchner, was one of the names that sounded in the previous one to take charge of the Ministry of Economy to replace Guzmán, who had already been given an expiration date from the Casa Rosada: “ He has a month to show results,” they said last Thursday.
But the president was thinking of other names that would not so much condition his power of action: “handing over the Economy is giving up the little control it already has in a Cabinet taken over by Kirchnerism“, they delimited from Casa Rosada. There they signed up to Cecilia Todecatoday number two of Santiago Cafiero in the Foreign Ministry, and the head of INDEC, Marco Lavagna.
“This I solve. We will continue on the same economic path”, the president wrote before the consultation on the replacement and the economic direction. Finally, in the last hours of yesterday, Silvina Batakis, former Minister of Economy of the province of Buenos Aires between 2011 and 2015, was confirmed, along with Daniel Scioli.
a hit for Serge Massa that after stressing and threading for months to take charge of the economic Cabinet, ended up with empty hands. An anger that the president of the Chamber of Deputies will suppurate for now in silence, although his space demands a final slam.
