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Author's Note: Pedro Brieger is an Argentine journalist and sociologist, author of more than seven books and contributor to publications on international issues. He currently serves as director of NODAL, a portal dedicated exclusively to the news of Latin America and the Caribbean. He collaborated with different national media such as Clarín, El Cronista, La Nación, Página / 12, Profile and for magazines such as News, Somos, Le Monde Diplomatique and Panorama. Throughout his career, Brieger won important awards for his informative work on Argentine radio and television.
(CNN Spanish) - The contrast between Mauricio Macri's departure from the presidency in Argentina in 2019 and the expectations generated by his arrival in 2015 is remarkable. Macri leaves the country in debt to the International Monetary Fund and with a poverty of almost 36%, when one of its campaign axes had been "zero poverty". He concludes his four-year term with high rates of accumulated inflation in 11 months of this year -48.3% - although he had said that this issue during his administration would not be a problem since - according to his own words - “the inflation is the demonstration of your inability to govern. ” As if this were not enough, Macri lost in the first round of elections by 8 points and is one of the few presidents of Latin American history that does not achieve immediate re-election.
When he took office in 2015, numerous analysts presented him as a dynamic leader with regional projection and representative of a more liberal “new right” that seemed to take the world ahead and that could be an alternative to the so-called “populisms”. The creation of a positive collective imaginary was such that one of the best-known journalists in Argentina dared to say that he has "something of Nelson Mandela", referring to the charismatic leader of South Africa praised for his ability to negotiate the end of apartheid and achieve peace in your country.
At the continental level, and to differentiate itself from the 12 years of Kirchnerism, soon after assuming he asked to apply the “democratic clause” of Mercosur to suspend Venezuela, and when Donald Trump assumed the presidency of the United States, in January 2017, he He felt at ease, flying his old friendship with the president of the United States, when both were successful businessmen, as if this implied great support to occupy a privileged place in the concert of nations.
However, to assume international leadership it takes much more than a negative position regarding a country or friendship with the president of the first world power. A regional integration project is needed, which - justly - is at the antipodes of Latin American rights thinking; because if there is something that has characterized these rights, it is its alignment with the United States in economic, political and diplomatic terms, at the expense of regional integration projects, as it was seen when they supported the Free Trade Area of the Americas, the FTAA, the great project of the United States for all America. Moreover, if the progressive current had created UNASUR and CELAC as two integration organizations, the successive right-wing governments emptied them of content until they were atomized, with the clear intention of letting them die to revitalize the OAS, where the United States plays a role central.
The problem with Latin American rights today is that Macri's failure is a blow to those who thought it would be successful and could show it as a new role model.
Mauricio Macri