Guido Carelli Lynch
07/11/2020 - 19:37
- Clarín.com
- Politics
"We knew that these were going to be the hardest three weeks, with (Alberto) locked up, the debt negotiation, the exhausted people and no good news in general," describes an official with access to presidential privacy. The Government does not hide the satisfaction of having gone through what they consider, until now, as the most difficult stage of the more than 114 days of isolation.
Although it remains to be defined how the quarantine in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area (AMBA) will continue, the official enthusiasm revolves around a challenge that - they now recognize in the Executive - had no answer before July 1. "Nobody knew if people were going to abide by the hardening of the isolation and we were finally able to close again (activities and circulation) after having opened, which is the most difficult thing," they reason.
This scenario transcends the Province and the City, where in the President's words 96 percent of the coronavirus problem is concentrated. Several provinces - as well as countries that had already surpassed the peak - that had recovered a certain "normality" similar to the days before the pandemic had to back down and tighten restrictions.
In the Government they see on the horizon the model of pendular quarantine, of marches and countermarches , like the one that is imposed in much of the world. That detail also takes its toll on social humor, as recognized in Olivos: there is not yet a clear horizon of departure.
Horacio Rodríguez Larreta was also surprised by the drop in circulation. He estimated a 20 percent reduction in the first few days of returning to Phase 1, but it was 30. Then it went up again.
With their own numbers, in the surroundings of the Head of Government they affirm since May that, when the President decreed quarantine on March 19, there was a social demand to go in that direction that the President accompanied and capitalized on. Then support for restrictive measures was reduced. In the City they believe that without social consensus it is impossible to meet compliance levels like those of the first days.
In some of the surveys that they consume in the most important offices of the Casa Rosada, the management of the Executive stands out during the pandemic, but not only that related to health care. In Balcarce 50 they indicate that the citizenship approves of social containment and they list: “there were no looting or shortages despite the growing demand for food in the AMBA, but neither in the Gran Chaco, in the Gran Rosario, the metropolitan area of Tucumán and Córdoba "
"Many of those who demonstrated, in Córdoba, are those who charge the ATP or the IFE, which had originally been intended for a month. No one thought we would have to pay it three times. It is not a criticism, it is a fact ”, warn in the environment of the officials that Alberto Fernández listens the most.
In the Government they also discover some limitations imposed by social behavior in the face of the crisis. Of the 1,400,000 freelancers who could have accessed zero-rate loans - thanks to the disbursement, the guarantee, from the State of $ 30 billion - only 500,000 people asked for it and, from that universe, only 400,000 completed the process. "People are very conservative in the face of uncertainty, preferring to adjust other expenses," argue the members of the economic Cabinet.
In the Government they consider the moratorium as a roadmap for what is to come, which was claimed by several of the businessmen who circulated in Olivos on July 9. In Congress they assure that the money laundering proposed by the Construction Chamber will not enter the Legislative Palace in July. "It is green ”, they say near the President.
On Independence Day, the President again appealed to the moderate speech and rested on the governors. "It is the profile that best fits him: that of the architect of this Argentina closest to the rational agenda to deal with the crisis and the pandemic," they point out, although they do not specify what the irrational agenda is.
His stalwarts demand that his most loyal officials raise the profile and toughen up the discourse when necessary. The head of the Cabinet Santiago Cafiero has already begun to recover the land, "the profile that he always had", according to his friends and that he interrupted with the health crisis. Their second, Cecilia Todesca, and Security Minister Sabina Frederic, among others, also raised their voices. "Alberto will begin to preserve himself a little more and will create the space for Cafiero to re-coordinate the political agenda that had been relegated," they explain.
The Government begins to slip plans for the future. They avoid describing it as a relaunch of management, although the emergency announcements began to give rise to the projections of a public works plan and the imminent relaunch of Procrear, among other battery of measures to boost employment and consumption, which some are dare to call as an exit plan.
