Ignacio Miri
02/17/2020 - 19:23
- Clarín.com
- Politics
As René Lavand did , who claimed that it was not possible to do the trick more slowly while lazily dropping letters on the cloth with his lonely left hand, the Government once again exposed the tools of its discursive battle against the International Monetary Fund. Alberto Fernández once again supported Cristina Kirchner's position against Kristalina Georgieva. Anyone can see clearly that escalation of accusations and counter-accusations, just as viewers easily counted the cards that came out of the deck of the illusionist who hypnotized with his tales of tahúres and cheats. But the important thing is not in those flowers .
The magic of Lavand did not live in the letters that were piled up in the sight of all, but in the three or four that the man moved with an undetectable speed for the human eye. Similarly, the government sleight of hand movement that serves to better understand sizzling with the IMF came on Friday, when the 2.3% increase plus $ 1,500 for retirees was announced . That is the most important message you have to send President Alberto Fernández to the Fund and private creditors. It's not verbal fighting, it's the accounts you have to show.
According to the numbers of the Argentine Political Economy Center, with the increase in the salaries of retirees, pensioners and beneficiaries of the Universal Child Allowance announced on Friday, the State will spend $ 5,100 million pesos less each month than it would have paid in effect of the suspended Mobility Law. That amount could reach 100,000 million pesos in the year if that increase scheme is maintained in June, as Ismael Bermudez published in this newspaper on the weekend.
It is not yet possible to know what part of the trick the IMF technicians, the presidents of the countries that weigh in that body and the analysts of the ten investment funds that have the amount of debt titles needed to block or give will look free way to a debt restructuring agreement. Will they be shocked by the magical setting or the tale of knights, fairies and dragons that Cristina proposed and accepted Georgieva?
The Government already had time to test the spirit with which the world will receive the Argentine proposal. First he proved with the attempt to restructure the Buenos Aires bond, that the President, Martín Guzmán and Axel Kicillof considered a rehearsal for the major battle. In that case, the negotiation collapsed when the Fidelity fund, which, it had reported, owned 16% of the securities, told the regulatory authority in the United States that it had gained the ability to block the restructuring . This is achieved when an actor obtains, in the case of that title, 25% of the bonds, or, in the case of other roles of the tangle of the Argentine debt, smaller percentages of small series of a given issue.
Kicillof's decision to pay the due date was agreed with the President and also with Guzmán, whom the governor has known for a longer time than any other government official. In fact, according to those who are aware of the intertwining of the decision, it was Kicillof who proposed Guzmán's name when Fernandez asked in a meeting with a very small table who could take care of accommodating the debt.
It is understandable that, whenever he can, Guzman says he has no money, that the debt is unpayable and that there is no willingness to meet the payments in the conditions in which the economy is today. No debtor puts on his best clothes to ask to forgive his obligations . It is also understandable that the Government does not want to show all the letters at once. That was René Lavand's strategy.