The video ran quickly through the cell phones of Mauricio Macri and his team, on the night of Sunday the 13th. “He saw her coming,” they said while they were looking at the clipping of a talk he gave in La Rural, in April of this year, where he predicted the result that Javier Milei would have in the PASO.
But the joy of macrismo had to do, in reality, with another issue. The former president, accused on numerous occasions of not reading the country’s political situation clearly, had played on the right side: support for Patricia Bullrich, to her cousin Jorge already many mayors who managed to become candidates position him again. It’s a revival. “If we are government againhe does not want to be part of the Cabinet, but in his role as former president, he will collaborate in everything that is necessary ”, they say at the small table. Mauricio is back in the ring.
Futurologist.
By the time the former president appeared in the bunker of Together for Change In Parque Norte, the telegrams from different schools in the country and the witness tables already showed a surprising trend: Milei was sweeping.
Macri arrived after 9:00 p.m. accompanied by his daughter Antonia and went into the office set up for his cousin Jorge, who already had data that, despite the adjusted result, he was above Martín Lousteau. From there, the former president moved towards the dressing rooms of Patricia Bullrich, who was exultant, and Horacio Rodriguez Larretawho had a hard time digesting what was happening.
“I told them that they had to be careful,” the former president repeated about the Milei phenomenon. By that time, he already had irrefutable proof of his warning: the video minute of that lunch in which he referred to the chances of the economist candidate from Freedom Advances.
“We are going to go to a second round with this more liberal and angry expression,” he predicted in April at the Cicyp lunch, an exclusive group of businessmen from the red circle. “It is that Mauricio has been saying that for a long time. He has been repeating for more than a year that Milei is going to be the expression of frustration and that Kirchnerism was going to be third ”, they tell NEWS around them, emboldened by the situation.
On Monday, hours after a primary that stunned consultants and advisers who did not see the tsunami of votes coming from the liberal candidate, Macri called Milei. “He’s the only one who congratulated me”would confess in various interviews the owner of Freedom Advances. It is that the former president speaks very often with the most voted leader in the country. With a particularity: he treats him closely, Javier tells him, but the economist does not address him by name out of respect: “Engineer”, he calls him.
What’s more, Milei, who radicalized against Bullrich, whom she once again called a “montonera”, and against a large part of Together for Change made a reservation with the former president: “He still has a lot to give,” he released in an interview on Continental radio. On many occasions, even before the PASO, the Liberal had indicated that he would like me to have a role in his cabinet, in the Foreign Ministry area. Macri thanked him for the proposal, but refuses to accept it.
Strategy. “We are going to be the government in December,” Macri harangued Down from the Parque Norte stage to Bullrich’s team. And he added: “What’s more, with Milei’s support, we are going to have the parliamentary strength to make the reforms we need. The political support that was lacking in my administration”. He was overflowing with joy, despite the fact that Juntos had finished in second position.
It is that he felt that politics, often elusive, had proved him right. The inmate left him on a good footing: the choice of Bullrich over Larreta, that of cousin Jorge over Lousteau and the results in the Province of Néstor Grindetti and a large number of mayors whom he had supported position him once again in the role he wants maintain: “He seeks to be a man of consultation. Respected as a leader of the space,” says a PRO source. A place that he had not found with the current head of the Buenos Aires Government.
However, a deputy with a good relationship with the former president questions whether they will respect that space to which he aspires: “Can anyone assure you that Patricia is going to have you as an adviser? I think she is preparing her campaign independent of all. Neither Mauricio nor Horace. No one but her ”, he ventures.
In Macri’s environment they consider that Bullrich will take them into account. But they make it clear that the former president is not looking for a role of influence: “They have already come out to attack us saying that he wants to be like Cristina with Alberto, they are all operations,” they protest.
What will take a long time to rebuild is the relationship with Larreta. It’s not like that gives it away either. There were too many clashes in the campaign that left them injured. The first reproach that Macri made was the castling of María Eugenia Vidal, who went to the City, with Diego Santilli, who went to the Province. “It is not healthy, neither for Juntos por el Cambio nor for them,” he warned the mayor of Buenos Aires.
“Look how it went,” says a member of the macrista girl table now. Vidal did not take place as a candidate and weeks before the STEP she announced her support for Larreta. “He blurred her profile,” Mauricio scolded her. Santilli lost a very close internship at the hands of Bullrich’s candidate, Néstor Grindetti.
Inside the City, his role was fundamental. He was the architect of the strategy so that Roberto Garcia Moritan He declined his candidacy and joined Jorge Macri’s army. “Mauricio called me and convinced me,” confessed the United Republican reference. Those points were essential to celebrate a narrow victory against Lousteau: 51.29% against 48.71% of the radical.
But they are not the only triumphs that Macri celebrates. In his team they make a list of the candidates for mayor that he supported and they hit the ball. The one that is repeated the most is that of Ramón Lanús, the former Macrista official who broke with the hegemony of the Posse family in San Isidro. But there is more:Gastón Di Castelnuovo in Ituzaingó”, they refer. And they complete: “If we do not lose votes, we will unseat Barefoot, who has been there for thirty years.”
Multi-faceted.
After the adrenaline of the primaries, the campaign towards the generals begins to take shape. “We still don’t have much, we haven’t started planning it,” they say around the former president.
What is already known is that Macri will continue with his private activities, beyond what happens in Argentina. Hours after the PASO, he traveled to Paraguay to participate as a guest in the swearing in of the new president, Santiago Peña. He coincided there with President Alberto Fernández.
It is not the only trip on the agenda this week. In fact, he was in the country for just a few hours, because the 19th was the start of the Bridge World Cup in Marrakech, Morocco. And he is part of the national delegation again, as reported by NEWS. The objective: improve the 12th position that the team achieved in the senior category in the 2020 edition.
As well as wants to become a key piece so that Together for Change finds harmony and do not leak votes, he believes that it is time to cross those who do not stop attacking him. That is why on Sunday the 13th, when he went to vote, he lashed out at Larreta and Lousteau’s adviser, whom he considered responsible for an operation against cousin Jorge. “Guillermo Seita is a mess,” he said before and after going through the dark room. “Unfortunately, many like to use this operator that is bad for politics,” he added. What he avoided saying is that he himself had worked with the consultant, who after consulting NEWS replied: “Mauricio forgets that I helped him in 2015.”
The experience of the former president after the 2019 primaries is being studied at this time by the Bullrich team. “Between August and October, with the ‘Sí se puede’ marches, 3 million votes were added. That is the idea, again ”, they propose. For that, the candidate has a protagonist from that company: “I was one of those responsible for the comeback. We added 11 points”, says Hernán Lombardi. And he harangues: “We are going to do it again. We are going to grow, people are going to show up”.
“Argentina is entering a change of era,” said Macri, closing the speeches on the night of Sunday the 13th. Beyond his words, two gestures were commented by his team after the festivities. The first, that Bullrich referred to him as “the President.” That comforted. The second, that when he went on stage He remained standing in front of Larreta, completely covering him. They argue that it was a coincidence, but they still celebrated the message.
The PASO were a kind of personal claim. So much so that in the hard wing of the PRO a counterfactual theory flies over: What would have happened if Mauricio was a candidate? Wouldn’t it have captured the radicalized vote and slowed down Milei’s growth? will never know. But they do believe that this can add value: if Bullrich wants to take votes from La Libertad Avanza in the face of the general elections, he is going to need it.
Given the euphoria surrounding Macri’s redemption, a radical leader puts a stop to it: “If he saw her so much, if he knew what was going to happen with Milei, he would have been a candidate and he was president,” he protests.
Beyond that, Macri’s, in his own way, was a victory. He was not a candidate. He was not on any list. And yet he won.
