Everything that had been announced will no longer be and what seemed impossible became a reality. The definition of the binomial of unity for the presidential elections of the ruling party left a quagmire of wounded within the Unión por la Patria.
It doesn’t go anymore. Cristina Fernández, her son Máximo hers and La Cámpora as a whole are the big losers. The official coalition goes to the elections with a formula without Kirchnerism. It is not a mere defeat in the electoral assembly; What happened has a bitter taste for the Kirchnerism that announces a change in the historical trend: Cristina Fernández has lost power.
If the “what” is new, the “how” ends up describing an even more forceful announced ending. The power of the Peronist governors represented in the last hours of the negotiations by Ricardo Quintela, governor of La Rioja; Gerardo Zamora, Santiago del Estero; and Raúl Jalil, head honcho of Catamarca, made himself felt strongly to avoid the electoral catastrophe that endangered the territoriality of the entire group. The Peronist mayors did the same, no one wanted to commit suicide with a formula that only represented the stubbornness of the vice president and hers. They were not willing to “die with their boots on.”
On Friday morning, the political earthquake unleashed by the territorial leaders shook hard Kirchnerism and put the Wado De Pedro/Juan Manzur formula in check, which ended up being set on fire in front of their own and others. Politics is ungrateful but bad politics is also cruel. The lie and selfishness were the last letters of the vice president before the closing of the lists. It’s time to go pick up the pipes and do damage control. The final conformation of the lists will define what is left –as consolation– to the pure Ks in the boxes of deputies and senators, plus some unlikely agreement in the executive positions of an eventual MAS government. It no longer matters that those places are the refuge for the leaders of La Cámpora and other CFK acolytes. At the close of this column, negotiations were continuing to define those places.
Was Alberto Fernández the final executioner of his mentor? It would be too great a title for someone who has not been able to demonstrate any leadership capacity in management. But we must admit that, as in his old days as a political operator, he was at the right time in the right place, to place Agustín Rossi in the formula, a moderate who seemed to have vanished days ago. “Alberto did what he had to do, since there was no place to continue militating the PASO, he refused to accept a formula that would have been a catastrophe. He negotiated with the governors, was in charge of disarming Scioli’s candidacy and added a little more logic to the general chaos, ”described a man close to the President.
Massa emerged as the big winner in this fight. A deadly blow to the Kirchnerist ideology. The man in charge of negotiating with the IMF and other indigestible cuckoos for the K mythology will be the head of the ruling coalition formula. Another contradiction that leaves the story that they have sustained for more than twenty years in a very bad light.
From the Patria Institute they rushed to say that “they do not feel defeated” and that what they have accepted is “an agreement to safeguard unity and institutionality.” A spiel very similar to the explanation that was published on the Unión por la Patria Twitter account, to communicate such a swerve. Incidentally, an institutional account, which represents the “old names” with a “new name” but without any proper name. A collector’s item.
Sergio Massa will continue in charge of Economy until PASO. The wear and tear of a presidential contest will prevent him from any other activity. With some malice but quite right, an official who knows him very well said sarcastically: “Sergio was no longer giving, he came to head the ministry with just enough. The smoke machine no longer has anything else to give”. Even so, the Tigre man must be recognized for his ability to survive and prevail. Now he must show how far he can go. But, without a doubt, the new formula makes the campaign more competitive.
Among the faces of defeat, not only the Minister of the Interior has been exposed to ridicule. In Daniel Scioli’s space, everything was disappointment. The former Buenos Aires governor had confirmed his candidacy 24 hours before his abrupt end together with the pre-candidate for governor Victoria Tolosa Paz. A too short political-electoral adventure. Juan Grabois had lowered his candidacy for the designation of Wado De Pedro. He was furious and ended up announcing that he will appear in PASO.
In the opposition, the struggle for places and positions had not been resolved rationally either. Yesterday afternoon the tusslings and last-minute negotiations continued. Never before has such a stark and pornographic power struggle been seen. Those who promise to move Argentina forward have behaved with an alarming level of selfishness and lack of empathy for the situation and the real problems of the people. The opposition candidates have been in charge of highlighting that, in politics, they are not all the same and not everything is the same.
Judging by the role that they have been making publicly and with their faces uncovered in recent months, anyone might think that “they are not all the same” but they are quite similar.