They are no longer what they were. Since Alberto Fernandez came to government, Cabinet It was mutating and suffering casualties to the detriment of its leadership. He lost civil servants who were unconditional to him and had to run loyal to the interns with the Kirchnerist wing of the coalition. The last case was Matias Kulfaswhich was in charge of the Ministry of Production, but if you look at the original photo of that December 6, 2019, when he presented in Madero Port to the team that would accompany him in the management, it will be possible to see that the casualties were important and with weighty names.
decimated team
The survivors albertists they are few and they remained in places of moderate relevance for the coming months, in which the economic agenda will have centrality, at least until the fever for the World Cup qatar seizes the attention of society.
Of the entire Cabinet, the most staunch Albertist left is Julius Vitobello. It is part of the small table of the President. She is with him every day and is still in charge of the General Secretariat of the Presidency, with an office in the Government House.
Also with office Rosada, Vilma Ibarra, in charge of the Legal and Technical Secretariat, is another Albertista of the first hour. Although it is true that she does not have the total pleasure of Cristina KirchnerFor now, Kirchnerism has not asked for his chair, as it has done with other officials. It is fair to say that the Legal and Technical Secretariat is not the most coveted area of the Government either.
santiago cafiero He is a survivor of the internship with Kirchnerism. After the defeat in the PASO of 2021, he had to give up his place in the Cabinet to the governor of Tucuman on leave John Louis Manzurso that, according to the off the record of the time, the Cabinet chief would be endowed with “political volume”. Manzur started with impetus, but today there are no traces of that leader from the north. Coffee, Instead, he went to the Foreign Ministry, leaving Felipe Solá out. In that change he also joined Cecilia Todeca, who was the Deputy Chief of Staff and today is with Cafiero as Secretary of International Economic Relations. She transcended that after the departure of Matias Kulfas of the Ministry of Production had offered him that place, but he would have turned it down and that opened the opportunity for Daniel Scioli to return to the country.
More survivors. Another stoic survivor of the official internship is Miguel Fish, the president of central bank, who still has his statement in the Senate waiting for Cristina Kirchner to want to deal with it. At this point in the government’s departure, it seems that Pesce will reach the end of his term without being validated by Congress. Argentine peculiarities.
Pesce had a stormy relationship with Martin Guzman when the Economy Minister he enjoyed a good harmony with Kirchnerism. Today that Guzmán is resisted by the K wing of the Government, they get along very well. This alignment is weighed by the President, who these days is monitoring the depreciation that the peso against the dollar. While this edition was closing, the different dollars that are sold in Argentina (blue, mep, counted with liquidation and solidarity) were having a considerable increase compared to the previous days. This currency crisis, overshadowed by the affair of the Venezuelan-Iranian plane detained in Buenos Aires, will be a test for the relationship between Pesce and Guzman.
One of the first to receive the diatribe of Maximo Kirchner was the Minister of Labor Claudio Moroni when in May 2020, two months after the arrival of the first cases of Covid-19 in the country and in full isolation, the son of CFK criticized that the official had approved an agreement to suspend workers from the food company Mondelez. From that moment on, Moroni was on the blacklist K.
Gustavo Belize, a friend of the President since his militancy in Buenos Aires Peronism, he is perhaps the official who generated the greatest expectation when he joined the Cabinet due to his good relationship with the Pope Francisco, with the unions and its reputation for transparency. He did not have major short circuits within the coalition, but neither did he shine as expected. She continues to head the Secretariat for Strategic Affairs and is part of Alberto’s small table.
From that Buenos Aires Peronism also comes John Manuel Olmos, chief adviser to the President and one of his judicial swords. Olmos was in the Vatican two weeks ago in a meeting with the Pope Francis which lasted more than an hour, according to the newspaper Clarín. It was the week after Bergoglio canceled a meeting with the Chancellor Cafiero. In other words, with a low profile, and at times relegated, Olmos is perhaps today one of the officials the president listens to the most. Fernandez. One of the last episodes in which he had a special influence on Alberto was the crisis due to the changes in the composition of the Judicial Council. The strategy and the position that the Government should have was analyzed in the Quinta de Olivos by Vilma Ibarra and Olmos.
Balance
A year and a half after the end of his mandate, the President left behind many friends and others not so much. Some he let go without further complaints and for others he fought until the last minute. In the case of Kulfas, it was due to his own clumsiness, when an off-the-record leak that he sent massively, in which he ranted against Cristina Kirchner. Alberto Fernandez he couldn’t do much to rescue him. It was more expensive to keep it than to let it go.
Perhaps the most painful exits were those of his friends Juan Pablo Biondi and Marcela Losardo, who were cornered by Cristina Kirchner. the former spokesman Biondi She was the victim of a letter from the vice president, in which she accused him of carrying out press operations against her. It was the precedent that CFK did not like off the records.
In the case of Losardo, the Minister of Justice left because Kirchnerism demanded a tougher position in the relationship with the magistrates. She was replaced by Martín Soria, who has a stronger diatribe against the Supreme Court, but no more effective. Still, CFK seems happy.
Alberto Fernandez showed up close to Losardo on Tedeum day for May 25 in the Buenos Aires Cathedral. They had not been seen together for a long time The day before, on the 24th, he also unfroze his relationship with the former Minister of Health Gines Gonzalez Garcia, who had been ejected because of the VIP vaccination case. Faces were seen again at the headquarters of the national PJ, where Alberto shared a locro with other officials and militants. During the speech he gave, Gines was standing to his right.
Other casualties
Maria Eugenia Bielsa in Housing and Habitat; Sabina Fredericin safety; Robert Salvarezzain Science and Technology; louis basterrain Agroindustry; Nicholas Trotta, in Education, and Daniel Arroyo, in Social Development, were other ministers that the administration of Alberto Fernández left behind. They all left angry -some more and others less- and they have reproaches to make to the President. One of them spoke this week after a long silence. It was Nicholas Trotta, who maintained that Alberto “disappointed” him and said that in the last weeks of his administration he had stopped talking to the President and that to this day he still has not recovered the dialogue. In an interview with Radio Miter he stated: “My disappointment with him is not as a person, but rather it is linked to what we projected and what we are finally managing to unfold. The front of all it was not transformed into a tool for positive transformation and I was disappointed that the main person responsible for achieving this is the President, who is the one who should occupy that role of leadership”.
In the future we will have to see what those who reach the end of the mandate say.
