The experience of the Frente de Todos was an electoral success that allowed Peronism to obtain a resounding victory in the 2019 elections, but it could not form a political force that would manage its internal differences and transform them into consistent and coherent government teams.
Peronism must head towards a new renovation, the third in its history. The first took place forty years ago, after the defeat in the democratic restoration of 1983. There was a second renewal in 2003, with the arrival of Néstor Kirchner to the presidency. In my latest book “A Peronism for the 21st Century” I propose the hypothesis that this new renewal and conceptual updating must pass, fundamentally, through the economic sphere. The objectives of social justice must be achieved taking into account the technological, productive and social transformations that have taken place, for which the traditional vision, in addition to dragging various shortcomings, can no longer give a consistent response. Likewise, Peronism must generate a forceful solution to the macroeconomic problems that Argentina is dragging: instability, recurring external crises, weakness of our currency and, more recently, the transition towards a high inflation regime.
Today’s world is witnessing a different stage of the globalization process, with increasingly rapid changes in which global value chains are reconfigured, investments are withdrawn from Asia and return to central countries and other latitudes. Manufactures that seemed swept away by Asian competition now have new opportunities. The knowledge economy plays a central role and digitization, industry 4.0, software production, robotization are advancing. It is a world that was also affected by the war in Ukraine in which the difficulties for the supply of energy (conventional and alternative) are intensifying, which must necessarily go towards an ecological transition, and that means producing new energies and metals . A world that will continue to demand food.
We are talking about industries, the knowledge economy, energy, mining, food. All this has Argentina. Are we then doomed to success, as ex-president Duhalde stated? I reject that idea. We have everything to achieve it, but it would not be the first time that we fail.
There are reasons for optimism, but breaking the deadlock requires broadening the political base and building lasting consensus. This implies rejecting both doomsday diagnoses and those who point out that the country is a failure with nothing to offer. Peronism must respond by proposing a new production model and take on the challenge of stabilizing the macroeconomy through a comprehensive program. It has precedents: the economic plan of 1952 (which allowed inflation to be lowered from 50% to 4% per year) and the macroeconomic efficiency of the Néstor Kirchner government are two historical examples to take into account.
* Matías Kulfas is an economist and former Minister of Productive Development of the Nation (2019-2022).
