In 1993, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, at 27 years old, founded the Sophia Group, the foundation on which he leveraged his political career. Today, 30 years later, the outgoing head of the Buenos Aires government is once again working on setting up a think tank that can give it political life again, after this year’s electoral defeat. The Grupo Sophia foundation was deregistered in 2021 for having been inactive for more than 15 years, so Rodríguez Larreta will have to look for a new brand to start working when he goes to the plain as of December 10. Among those around him, they also believe that, in parallel, the mayor is considering the possibility of forming a new political party. The thesis is supported by the loss of his leadership place within the PRO, to which is added the implosion that JxC had with Mauricio Macri’s decision to support the candidacy of Javier Milei. In this scenario, Rodríguez Larreta was left far from everything, because he will no longer exercise the Executive Power of the City of Buenos Aires, which will pass into the hands of Jorge Macri, and he will not have strong leadership within the PRO, because the most important leaders like Macri , Patricia Bullrich –the president of the party–, Cristian Ritondo or Diego Santilli are already working to help Milei. That is to say, starting from scratch is almost the only way forward. For now, the name of the foundation is kept secret.
Fragmentation. Just as Larreta is about to become self-employed, the JxC crisis, added to the experience of the almost complete splitting of all provincial elections, is leading governors to increasingly take refuge in their districts and strengthen their local construction to be able to dialogue with greater force against the next president. An example of this movement is the one being planned by the elected governor of Chubut Ignacio Torres, who is preparing the registration of his own party at the provincial level, emulating the strategy of the late Mario Das Neves, who had created Chubut Somos Todos, a brand of his own that It could or could not include local Peronism. Torres is thinking of creating a party that would be called Despierta Chubut, in reference to the phrase he used as a campaign slogan, according to the ADNSur portal.
In this way, Torres would detach itself from the JxC brand and reinforce a provincialist construction like its neighbors in Río Negro and Neuquén. In Río Negro, Alberto Weretilneck governs with his party Together We Are Río Negro, created in 2015, and Neuquén has the Neuquino Popular Movement created in 1961, which has governed the province since 1963, with some military government intervals.
Further south on the map is Santa Cruz, the land of the Kirchners, which this year will have a new governor disconnected from Kirchnerism, who also has his own party. Claudio Vidal comes from the oil union and his party is called SER (We Are Energy to Renew).
Political fragmentation is widespread throughout the country and traditional parties no longer dominate. Misiones has been governed for 20 years by Carlos Rovira’s Frente Renovador de la Concordia. In Salta, Gustavo Sáenz renewed his mandate carrying the Salteña Identity Party seal, with which in 2019 he was an ally of the PRO and this year he competed against Macrism. The advantages of autonomy.
In San Luis, the triumph of Claudio Poggi, which ended the dynasty of the Rodríguez Saa brothers, occurred from an alliance of his Avanzar San Luis party with Together for Change that at the national level has broken the compass. Marcelo Orrego of San Juan is in a similar situation. He came to power after an alliance of the party he presides, Production and Work, with JxC. Today all that is under discussion.
Numbers. Radicalism is a tribe of five governors: starting December 10 they will have Mendoza, with Alfredo Cornejo; Jujuy, with Carlos Sadir; Santa Fe, with Maximiliano Pullaro; Corrientes, with Gustavo Valdés, and Chaco, with Leandro Zdero.
Peronism will only have six provinces and at the same time there will be notable differences between them. Axel Kicillof’s Buenos Aires will not be the same as Raúl Jalil’s Catamarca or Osvaldo Jaleo’s Tucumán. Gildo Insfrán will continue to lead Formosa, as will Sergio Ziliotto from La Pampa and Ricardo Quintela from La Rioja. What will happen to Córdoba? It is perhaps the mirror in which everyone looks at themselves. A provincial force with the capacity for negotiation in Congress and good dialogue with Peronism and the opposition. In the last elections, Schiaretti competed with his own alliance called Hacemos Por Nuestro País, which functioned as a national version of his provincial alliance Hacemos Por Córdoba. At the local level, Schiaretti has incorporated the Justicialista Party into his structure, but not at the national level, because the Córdoba voter does not like the Peronist from Buenos Aires. Historical issues.
In short, the next president will have to negotiate with greater intensity, governor by governor, any project in Congress, because allies will be needed even to obtain a quorum. This could lead to a provincialization of politics, where releasing funds for a local public work is the most effective way to unblock a negotiation for a package of laws. Conducive effectiveness, Hipólito Yrigoyen would say.
