The proposal surprised more than one leader of Together for Change. The former president, in person, tried to convince them that the opposition should not accompany the ruling party in the agreement with the IMF. He argued that he had qualified voices that indicated that the negotiation was disappointing and assured that, if everything collapsed, Kirchnerism was going to place them in the place of accomplices: “They are going to screw us and they are going to blame me”, I was saying. Despite the default, which was just around the corner, Mauricio Macri He did not give in to the request of radicalism and the Civic Coalition not to further complicate Alberto Fernández.
His vision changed on March 9, when the deputies managed to reduce the bill to an article, which would allow the Government to refinance the debt but which did not endorse the political program that had been attached to the initial draft. Through a Zoom in which the main opposition figures participated, Macri called for harmony: “We must accompany”, he sentenced.
The political turmoil made the former president’s first reaction go almost unnoticed. But among the leaders of Together for Change, a dilemma that they have had since December 10, 2019 surfaced: what place does macri?
The agreement with the Fund made the leader of the PRO return to the center of the ring. Tired of receiving criticism and insults from the ruling party, he loudly claimed that since Together for Change they would defend him. He feels that his peers are in a ruthless race to be candidates for President in 2023 and that no one recognizes his place. He now organizes meetings and is involved in every aspect of the opposition coalition. He debates between being a candidate again or limiting himself to the role of overseer of his space, but he has no doubt that he will actively participate in the internship. If he doesn’t jump in, he’s going to bless the leader who introduces him to the best government team. Macri is recharged.
days of fury As the days went by, the mood of the former president moderated. Talks with economists and exchange of views with the United States ambassador, Mark Stanley, made him reconsider: he understood that the default was too high a political cost, not only for this government but for the next one. The splinters of the bomb would reach Together, if they return to power in 2023.
At the start of the discussion, macri he headed “the hardest position”, as defined by a legislator. The hawks of the PRO seconded him, they were convinced that “the worse, the better”. They even came to think of a 2001, a refoundation. However, no one publicly admits that the former president’s views were, at one point, not to accompany the government.
Even a leader who revealed off the record that the leader of the PRO He tried to seduce him with his extreme position, hours later he assured in a television program that “when the subject was discussed, Macri said that the debts had to be honored.” Nobody wants to shoot themselves in the foot.
At the moment, the shots that the former president receives are from elevation. Like the dart that Facundo Manes He sent to the hawks, after voting the half sanction in Deputies: “I am glad that many of us leaders in Argentina have thought of the country and not of their personal political project. The UCR always discussed thinking about the country”, he indicated.
The only one who wrote down his name and surname is Gerardo Morales. Despite the fact that at the beginning of March they had met in a bar in Martínez to close positions, the head of the UCR executed him as soon as he saw the opportunity. “I don’t want him to be president again. That’s my opinion. He doesn’t like that and that’s why he gets mad at me. I say what I think and others speak below, “he said. After the debate, the governor of Jujuy thanked all the opposition political forces. To all, except the PRO.
That is why Morales is in the crosshairs of macri: the style of the radical generates a lot of mistrust. “Watch out for Gerardo who takes turns: once he hits me and another time you,” he warned Horacio Rodriguez Larreta in one of his last communications.
The relationship between the former president and the head of the Buenos Aires government improved this summer, during the vacations of both in the Cumelén country. They shared various social gatherings and chatted alone. Macri criticized him the same as the rest: the lack of recognition. The mayor apologized and from that moment the conversation between the two is much more fluid. It can be interpreted as signs of appeasement, as taught by ethology, the scientific study of human and animal behavior. Rodríguez Larreta consents to it, calms him down, although later he does what suits him best.
The mayor needs macri by his side in his adventure towards the Presidency. If there is an internal PRO, her support will be a necessary condition to advance to the generals. But also, because it guarantees a large number of militants who can supervise during the elections. An abstract detail that is of great importance on election day.
Everyone disputes the figure of the former president. Patricia Bullrich also wants his blessing and is convinced to dispute Larreta’s leading role, despite a version that she indicated that she could compete for the governorship of Buenos Aires. In her environment they rushed to deny her: she goes for everything.
The fact that macri is again in the center of the ring is evidenced by the change in his agenda. According to a leader of Together, before to meet the former president, you had to call his secretary, Amparo García Blesa, a trusted woman of Fernando De Andreis who since last year has replaced the historic Anita Moschini, who retired. Now, it is the leader of the PRO who asks for the meetings with deputies and senators. “It was decided to return to prominence,” they say.
Travel. When the Senate finished debating the law of the agreement with the International Monetary Fund, Mauricio Macri was already far away, more than 7 thousand kilometers away.
The former president made public part of his agenda in the United States: he said that he had given a masterclass at the Adam Smith Center of Florida International University. But it would not be the only conference agreed on North American soil: he was also hired by Georgetown University to give two more talks.
There, at the prestigious Washington university, is Professor Alejandro Werner, the former director of the IMF’s Western Hemisphere Department, who was one of the key figures in the US$57 billion deal signed during the Macri administration.
There is a good relationship between them. For this reason, the former president pays special attention to the considerations made by the doctor in Mexican economics, who spent a decade in the IMF and he even met with Alberto Fernández officials at the beginning of this latest negotiation. In an article in Americas Quarterly, Werner called the minister’s work Martin Guzman as “a weak, disappointing deal.” Its foundations led the former president to oppose, in principle, the project that Alberto Fernández had sent to Congress.
Macri will be little in Argentina when he returns from the United States. Due to being prosecuted in the case of alleged illegal espionage on the relatives of those who died in the sinking of the ARA San Juan submarine, the former president must request permission to leave the country. And there he leaves the traces of his travels: he requested to travel to Italy between March 25 and April 9. The reason is that he will play an international bridge tournament (see box). But in the meantime he will continue adding miles: from the old continent he will go to Qatar for three days to be present at the World Cup draw, which will take place on April 1.
The former president does not need to be in the Federal Capital to regain prominence. In fact, since the beginning of the year, he has spent most of his time outside of Buenos Aires. In the summer, he made his house in Cumelén the meeting place for many political leaders and other personalities. The exclusive country house of Villa La Angostura became a catwalk for legislators, but a politician and businessman from Saudi Arabia also landed there. Macri was hosted by Yasir Othman Al-Rumayyan, the financial adviser to Arab Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salmán. They played golf, ate barbecue, and rode Joe Lewis’s helicopter together. Martín Migoya, CEO of Globant, was also part of the game.
Paradoxes of politics, Mauricio Macri is in love with Patagonia, the “place in the world” of Cristina Kirchner. He spoke to more than one interlocutor about the benefits of the south, every time he had the opportunity. There he celebrated his birthday, on February 8: Juliana Awada, “Toto” Caputo, Gustavo Arribas and the actor Martín Seefeld ate sushi and celebrated the 63 years of the creator of the PRO.
In the ring. What macri has regained centrality in the political scene generated the hubbub of some in Together for Change, but the concern of others who have aspirations to lead the space and for whom the former president could become a stumbling block. Where it is celebrated, without fissures, is in the ruling party.
For the Front of All, the figure of Mauricio enables constant criticism. “The government is wrong, but Macri is on the other side,” a consultant very close to Alberto Fernandez. The last one who targeted him was the president of the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo association, Carlotto’s Stele. He asked Alberto Fernández and Cristina Kirchner to be “more severe” with the former president. “I don’t understand how he is not in prison and goes on a trip to Europe calmly, having left us in misery,” he protested.
One of his last public activities in Argentina, before leaving for the United States, was a visit to Expoagro, the country’s largest farm-related fair. He walked among the stands with his former Minister of Production, Francisco Cabrera, to applause and other gestures of affinity. He served to lift her spirits.
However, macri he is disappointed. He understands that the Government’s agreement with the Fund will give him the chance to reach the end of the mandate without major shocks, but that there will be no margin, nor intentions, to carry out any type of reforms. And without that, the country’s situation will remain in a coma for years to come. The idea that there are no major changes frustrates him.
In the debate over the agreement with the IMF, macri felt used by the ruling party, but also unprotected by his own. He was angry with the number of times that the government project named him as the person most responsible for the situation. “The debt belongs to Macri”: that argument put him on a war footing.
That situation put him in an awkward place. Suddenly, the positions of the former president and the leader of La Cámpora, Máximo Kirchner, were too similar. The extremes, the harshest opinions on each side of the crack, touched each other and showed disagreement with the official project. In Congress it was a triumph of the moderates and that exposed them.
However, unlike Maximus, macri flew on time. The vice president’s son was visibly isolated after not participating in the debate and going down to the floor at the last minute to vote against, along with a minority in the lower house. The former president, on the other hand, was convinced in time that he should support. When the opposition managed to reduce the project only to the credit request, excluding itself from the responsibility of the political memorandum, he gave the arm to twist. He even had a hard time convincing some of his hawks to give up: they wanted to go for it all. “He was quite angry, but he understood that it was for the best,” reveals a leader who participated in the Zoom and the internal negotiation.
Mauricio Macri it’s back. And with him, many of his management officials reappear on the scene. In fact, in the first days of March, the former president met again with his chief of staff, Mark Pena, in his office on Avenida Libertador. The relationship is being rebuilt.
Like no other leader, the leader of the PRO has full power to twist the course of many wills. “If Mauricio decides to play, they all have to come down,” exaggerates a legislator with an excellent relationship with the former president. If he doesn’t play, the candidates will require his approval. For that reason they hope that by the end of the year this great dilemma will be resolved. Meanwhile, the opposition will have to live with uncertainty.
