Pablo Ibáñez
05/29/2020 - 10:37
- Clarín.com
- Politics
Martín Guzmán had, 170 days to swear in as minister, his first political raid . He shared it with Santiago Cafiero, the chief of staff, who invited him on the tour in a gap in a talk they had with Governor Juan Manzur on Wednesday.
Cafiero facilitated, led by Alberto Fernández, a movement that Guzmán has been preparing for a long time: to go out into the streets, show a flatter, less technical profile, "stop being the minister of debt."
It fits with a dynamic that the president tries to impose on his government: reinstating the economic and productive issue in parallel with the urgent agenda of COVID-19, with its peaks and the threat of a critical outbreak.
In Olivos they start from a diagnosis: the worst of the economic crisis, the hardest impact of the pandemic and the quarantine, occurred in the 40 days from March 20 to April 30.
They assume, with more wishes than data, that the paralysis of that period of general collapse began to flare up in May. Fernández reads some signs: 2 out of 3 private workers returned to activity after the last easing and some indicators, such as industrial energy consumption, began to move.
The monumental injection of official funds into the economy peaked: more than 7 million received the IFE, some 2.4 million workers had a complementary salary and 316 thousand monotributistas took loans at rate 0.
If you add the 5.7 million retirees and pensioners, plus the 3.8 million public employees of all levels and the 2.4 million beneficiaries of AUH, almost 9 out of 10 Argentine households receive official contributions , according to a report. of the Ministry of Productive Development led by Matías Kulfas.
That data, of an unprecedented dimension, the government highlights as an injection of funds to try to move an economy that had a vertical fall and which, they hope, would begin to flatten in May.
The opposite of what happens with the contagion curve that entered the dreaded peak without being able to venture, yet, what is the ceiling.
In the last two weeks, Fernández put economic issues on his agenda as he had not done since he entered a pandemic on March 10 after contact with Giuseppe Conte, the Italian premier , during the explosion in that country.
He went to Tucumán and Santiago del Estero, where he toured companies and participated in the restart of public works, and was in La Plata with government officials and opponents to announce an infrastructure plan for the province. He moved, in these rounds, with Gabriel Katopodis, a sensor typical of Fernández in Peronism and above all, in the depths of the suburbs.
Construction had been in a tailspin since before COVID-19 and the contribution of the public sector is still symbolic. But Fernández invokes it as the engine of the reactivation: "Wait, construction is going to be the key to growing again," he told businessmen and union leaders in the sector that they went to see Olivos to ask him to authorize private construction.
It is still part of the promises: the announcement of a housing plan. A week ago, Fernández received María Eugenia Bielsa in Olivos to ask for details of the progress of the program, a file that was ready in February but, like many others, was paralyzed by the coronavirus.
"Back to the pre pandemic agenda" ; they say in Government.
In this return to a normality that no longer exists, Guzmán intends to start playing at other tables: he goes to Olivos almost every weekend to see himself, alone, with Fernández, although Gustavo Beliz sometimes joins in.
He has a dialogue with Cristina Kirchner, whom he has visited in his Recoleta apartment or, on some occasion, at Florencia Kirchner's house in Constitución.
The Fernándezes, separately, praise Guzmán because they say that he resisted, although with uncertain results, the pressures in the pulls of the swap.
It is read, from politics, as a message that Guzmán not only gambled and deployed a stealthy operation to be a minister but, now, he seems to have a greater plan that consists of ceasing to be the expert in exchange and entering into other conversations.
The visit to the Viamo plant in Villa Lugano - the owners contacted Cafiero via Linkedin, as heard at Casa Rosada - operates on that logic: Guzmán wants to appear in the ATP photo. the business assistance plan for the payment of wages.
Just as the Economy Minister put a corset around the debt, a topic in which almost no other officials intervene, he now empathizes with Cafiero and Cecilia Todesca Bocco, the deputy chief of staff, who intervened in the design of the IFE.