05/12/2020 - 21:39
- Clarín.com
- Opinion
Since last week, Alberto Fernández has begun to tempt himself to introduce the coronavirus pandemic, which he is reasonably fighting, in discussions with the opposition. Someone should warn you soon, for the next phase of quarantine, that it would be wise not to again compare the local health strategy for the virus with that tested by other countries. His crossing with former Minister Alfonso Prat Gay over the economy, probably does not move many. His criticism of María Eugenia Vidal for the hospitals that she did not equip, perhaps, nor deserve a reply. Hospitals opened, in several cases, more than once in Buenos Aires by Cristina Fernández format empty shell.
All those rags can be washed at home. One would only have to wonder if, in the midst of the emergency, it would be convenient to display them. Repeating the frictions in the regional and global context, on the other hand, could entail another cost for Argentina. A nation that, due to its geographical location and a certain political-cultural root, is often attached to an insular feeling.
Several things, in that aspect, would be failing in the Government. One of them has the mark of Argentineness on the selvedge. Believing that a hitherto successful pandemic policy grants a right of superiority. Of course a beacon for the planet. Vanity that has a record. That of alleged champions of respect for human rights by trials of the military. That of a country that produces raw materials capable of feeding the world. But with 40% poor. In another time, that mirage of having equated the peso with the dollar. Or after the 2001 crisis, growth at Chinese rates. Always weak pontifications.
The President's last collision was with Sweden. Hard to understand. Perhaps fueled by the team of infectious diseases and without any political restraint network, Alberto published a comparison of the consequences of the coronavirus here and in the Scandinavian country. Comparison without meaning or proportions. It would have been more accurate, perhaps, to do it with Brazil. It would have been a boldness with unforeseeable consequences. On the other side is Jair Bolsonaro, who represents, despite his regret, Argentina's main trading partner.
The President received a response from Sweden that seemed like a lesson. Without the Argentine boasts. That he sowed in passing questions about the decision-making mechanism of the president. Obviously, no one accurately informed him of the characteristics of the Scandinavian experiment to combat the pandemic. Alberto tried to use it as a false counterpart between the defense of life or the economy.
Sweden made a more loose confinement, with some relationship to that Angela Merkel practiced in Germany, according to the profile of their society. Impracticable here, in Spain or Italy. But it also limited economic activities to the point that predicts a dramatic escalation of unemployment . The appeal to humility could be picked up when the Nordic nation's chancellery pointed out that in the face of the novel challenge of the virus "it will be time until we know which model works best" . It is implicit that it includes within those possibilities the Argentine scheme.
The first doubt lies in knowing the role that the Foreign Ministry plays each time the President is placed in the window. If there is an exchange or if the ministry of Felipe Solá runs only behind to correct the errors. In almost all cases the amendments are made by the president himself. It ended up confessing admirer of Sweden.
On a previous occasion the fray occurred with Chile. Alberto also appealed to the trans-Andean neighbor to demonstrate the virtue of our country's health policy. On that occasion it was rained on wet. A few days earlier, when participating in a teleconference with the Puebla Group (a progressive conglomerate of meager representation), the President had urged the Chilean opposition unit to confront Sebastián Piñera. President hacked by social and violent insurrections during 2019. He sounded ugly. Almost on a political border.
Alberto stopped the road with a long phone conversation with Piñera. At the same time, a debt to Uruguay was settled. Land to which he seemed to turn his back since he lost the Broad Front. He also spoke with Luis Lacalle Pou. Who he knows as much as his family and his father, Luis, the only former president of the National Party since the return of democracy.
It was not clear in all these patches how much the Foreign Ministry had an impact. Nor in the round trip that was more serious . When Argentina unilaterally decided to suspend its participation in Mercosur due to the free trade agreements that its partners (Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) carry out with Canada, South Korea and Lebanon, among other countries.
The Government originally had a valid argument. No one knows what conditions the national, regional and global economy will be in after the collapse caused by the virus. But that argument could not validate the door in any way. Less, done inconsistently on two planes.
First with partners. Also with the local opposition. The construction of MERCOSUR, with infinity of problems, is a State policy that Raúl Alfonsín inaugurated. And that, even in the worst circumstances, Argentina knew how to defend.
Finally, the Government corrected its position. But that succession of corrections would show one disturbing thing: something does not work well in Alberto's political surroundings.
