Roberto Lavagna on the electoral radar and the secret visit of Juan Grabois to Pope Francis

Ignacio Zuleta

10/18/2020 6:43 PM

• Clarín.com

• Politics

Updated 10/18/2020 6:47 PM

The time of the distribution or how the money appeases any conflict

In politics, the art of agreement, not of conflict as the naive believe, the counterpart of the fight is the peace that follows it.

When everything seemed broken between Peronism and the opposition, they advanced the last hours towards an

.

There the most serious issues are disputed in a virtual tie of the political system.

Senate with overwhelming majority of the ruling party;

Deputies discounts with such a finite difference that it forces the ruling party to negotiate almost everything.

This time the agreement is to renew the protocol of mixed sessions until the end of November, when the ordinary sessions end.

Peace arises from the recognition by the ruling party of the main opposition condition: to ensure, at the request of the party, full presence for organic issues.

There are three:

,

and new formula for

.

The deal is assured after tough negotiations between the chiefs of Juntos por el Cambio with Sergio Massa.

Mario Negri as head of the interblock fatigued the zoom in block table meetings, to close this chapter, which allows all deputies who request it, to be present at the sessions.

Massa seeks a way for these sessions to take place

.

It was more difficult for the PRO to discuss the protocol, because there were legislators who set tougher conditions, some even made a mandatory presence.

Cristian Ritondo imposed the criterion of extension without changes, as the best remedy.

The emissary of that force was

, who made an

council

with Massa.

It happened in a separate part of the lunch that the Uruguayan Ambassador

offered the two as chamber authorities

.

It was a formal situation, but it helped Sergio and Álvaro to be in foreign territory to close the inquinas.

The opposition makes claims on behalf of all governors

The agreement coexists with more annoying claims about the 2021 budget project and that remain open until this Tuesday, when the respective commission awaits an opinion on the project, which will go to

, or where that session is held in full presence.

These are claims that the opposition is angry with, but shared by all governors.

Negri, Ritondo and Maxi Ferraro –heads of the JxC blocks– together with Álvaro González and Alfredo Cornejo – vice presidents of the chamber–, discussed with Massa,

Head of Cabinet and the Treasury -;

and on the other side of the zoom, the four governors of Together for Change and financial experts

.

It happened between Wednesday and Thursday, to present to the Government a list of claims that must respond in the next few hours.

The Casa Rosada wants a

, as a signal to the markets and the IMF, of the same meaning as the two “Guzmán” laws of December and January, Emergency and Debt Renegotiation, which had the opposition vote. The request of the governors is that they facilitate the repayment of the debt, with the Sustainable Guarantee Fund, which is in the process of renegotiation now in the Senate. That debt in total adds up to

, and the payment suffocates to the provinces.

The expedient is that a

is issued

.

Now they apply the Badlar rate, which doubles the interest (today at 33%).

The suspension of the ban is also being negotiated for the provinces to issue updated bonds.

This inhibition is in the articles of the Convertibility Law –7th and 10th, which veto any indexation–, a Cavallo legacy that refuses to die.

If there is no update it is impossible to issue a voucher.

It can enter, not in the budget but in another law, which has to come out before the end of the year: the renewal of the suspension of the Fiscal Consensus, which expires on December 31.

The package is broader, as if to take away Guzmán's dream with questions that for an accounting mind "are more for forgotten than for referrals" as Pérez Galdós says of love affairs, and states that:

1) 1% of the collection of the Country tax - 30% to the card dollar - is coparticipable.

2) The provinces have an automatic authorization to borrow in pesos and with local legislation (they cannot do so due to the Financial Responsibility law).

3) Transportation is subsidized in the provinces with the same care that is applied to the AMBA.

4) The Federal Solidarity Fund (FOFESO) is replaced, which derived 30% of the withholdings on soy exports to local infrastructure works.

, in exchange for a help that managed to stop a session of Deputies, which would have prevented that cut.

History skids that arise from the thoughtful tactic of the Nation –with this and other governments– to confront the governors with the retirees, in the fight for the short blanket in the distribution of taxes.

That sheet closes the inevitable list annexed to the budget of every year, with the works that governors and mayors of the whole country demand.

Lavagna on the radar

The public and private movements of Peronism are directed towards one main objective,

.

The province of Buenos Aires is the decisive territory because it is the only one that can provide the difference that Peronism seeks to improve to add at least 10 deputies, allowing it to have its own quorum in that chamber.

It is the way to unblock the equilibrium situation that forces him to negotiate everything with the opposition.

Peronism largely dominates the Senate, but does not have 2/3 of the votes to advance the organic projects and in Deputies the opposition determines the form and substance of the laws.

To a weak party due to the lack of leadership, and that also does not have a culture of concertation, everything costs a lot.

And more so in a country that walks through the

.

That difference can be discounted by the ruling party with an important victory in Buenos Aires, a district that elects many deputies, unlike most provinces, which elect few and everything is already widely distributed.

The opposition will also concentrate the fight in Buenos Aires, with a list that, in the best of cases,

: María Eugenia Vidal, Elisa Carrió, Miguel Angel Pichetto.

If Alberto Fernández needs Roberto Lavagna for something, it is to head a list of national deputies in Buenos Aires, rather than as a minister.

Lavagna's name is

.

Some believe that he is a Peronist, but he was brought into the cabinet of

in 2002 by

, and the UCR took him in 2007 as a presidential candidate against Cristina de Kirchner, with Gerardo Morales as vice (third with 16.91%, against Cristina-Cobos with 45.29% and Carrió-Giustiniani with 23.04%).

Earlier, in 2003, Daniel Scioli convinced Néstor Kirchner that he should announce that Lavagna would be the Minister of Economy if they won.

It was a

for his electoral chance.

They also lost with 22.25% against Menem-Romero with 24.45%.

He returned to Olivos several times and Kirchner once dreamed of him as a candidate to face Mauricio Macri in the City.

The "Chueco" Mazzón - intermediary of that project - never managed to convince him.

The analysis that originated the formula

Part of this rearrangement is

Roberto Lavagna's

.

The diversity day tweet called for unity in the presidential formula.

"The best thing that can happen to us is that the presidential formula remains united, but within the concept of 'enough to win, but not to govern'".

Nothing changed in the last 10 months to forget about this part of the analysis that originated the formula.

This expression shows him as a fine connoisseur of the "analysis" that originated the unity formula that he fostered when he

, to dismantle the table of the 4 that made up

as an alternative to the Christian Peronism.

That table took a nosedive when he refused to appear in the photo if he was not offered the candidacy for president.

He pointed to Massa, who was his ally, as the one who wanted to take him to a STEP for the presidential formula that would make him lose, as happened with José Manuel de la Sota in 2015.

when Schiaretti achieved re-election to governor , and raised the flag of "republican" Peronism that Pichetto is flying today from the opposition.

In less than a week, the Fernándezes announced their candidacy together.

Until that date Guillermo Nielsen, Lavagna's main political spokesman, had exhausted meetings here and in Europe, with the possibility of a Lavagna-Pichetto formula.

The illusion of the Scioli jump

Lavagna's gesture was a driving force for the presidential leadership, which was able to respond to that slippery plot of militant opinion-makers who dream of Alberto's leap out of Peronism.

It replicates the position of a sector of the opposition that assumes that Alberto is not Cristina, and that neither is Massa.

It is a

, which abounded a lot in the last decade, when locals and strangers called for the "leap of Scioli."

Where?

What strength or project could it give to what it already had in formal Peronism?

It never jumped.

Furthermore, when he was closer than ever to an agreement with Massa and Macri, it was he who dynamited that bridge.

It happened before the closing of the 2013 legislative lists, when he left Macri without candidates in Buenos Aires and they had to get embroiled in Massa's lists.

Massa and Alberto's walk through outer space left them without oxygen and they had to return to the mother ship.

.

And that of Peronism, of its reunification.

Difficult, illusory, that now that they won they are going to divide.

The fantasy of Alberto's captivity by Cristina is a

(as the corny call an expression of desire) without a handle.

They are different, but they are amalgamated by the most legitimate ambition for power.

They fought before and can do it again.

When?

Not when asked by the opposition or opinion leaders.

It will happen when some of the three who rule up there –Alberto Cristina, Massa– break out the homicidal instinct that beats in politicians.

It is part of his survival instinct of the fittest of that trade, in whom Scorsese's lesson in "The Irishman" governs:

.

It is inherent to politics.

The concept "enough to win, but not enough to govern" is also viscous, because it is affirming that what there is is not enough to govern.

What is missing?

Perhaps Lavagna is a minister?

This appearance of the former minister came as a surprise to his own followers in Congress, who hope that he will give them some clue as to what he meant.

Those who delve between the lines find prequels to this Lavagnist statement in the dialogue published by the site

, last Sunday the 11th. "What does Roberto Lavagna think of this?" Horacio Verbitsky asked Alberto.

Answer: "He believes that it is very important that Cristina and I are very close. He told me expressly, with an analysis very similar to the one we are doing."

The suspicious come to believe that since it is an interview of a militant gender, the interviewee, Alberto, could suggest to the interviewer that he ask him for Lavagna's opinion.

.

This is what some Lavagnistas, angry about his tactical reappearance, believe, that they relate to some offer to add him to the cabinet or to an electoral function.

Signs from beyond

Lavagna is neither clerical nor militant in the Peronist papism, so present today in Olivos.

But he has had key experiences in his career with Pope Bergoglio.

In May 2003, when he was Minister of Economy, he managed through the then bishop that the Church did not withdraw from the Argentine Dialogue, that multisectoral table that established duhaldism in 2001. Jorge Casaretto, head of the Social Pastoral, had threatened to do so if the clientelism did not end.

to prevent that from happening after speaking with the bishop of San Isidro.

If the Church leaves, everything will get worse, said the minister in a discreet visit to the archdiocese.

In August of that year, Bergoglio sponsored Lavagna's presence at the Colloquium in Rimini, Italy, of the

organization

.

The minister was able to explain in that forum, which was attended by Italian government authorities, the country's economic situation.

, Italian bondholders who had better say something to them.

In September 2005, Lavagna presented, together with Bergoglio, the book by Guzmán Carriquiri, the Pope's mentor who had been manager, together with Professor Aldo Carreras - a high confidant on those heavenly peaks - of that trip to Rimini.

That day he

because he missed a campaign event by Cristina de Kirchner, candidate for senator, scheduled for the same time as the appointment with the bishop.

He would have promised to ignore the campaign because in July she had mocked Eduardo Duhalde as "The Godfather."

A month earlier, August, Lavagna had denounced the cartelization of public works, the first

.

In November, after the elections, he resigned from office.

Without being friends, it is as if they were.

Important for someone close to a government that this week promises to relaunch the project to decriminalize abortion, something that falls heavily on the Pope.

You are already aware because a few days ago he received Juan Grabois in the Vatican, in a most lacritical meeting.

The drama of legislative straits

The legislative constraints subject the ruling party to suffocations that reveal their lack of wrist to apply the electoral advantage in legislative results.

It happened in the last session.

Officialism and opposition had agreed on a bill that gives vaccine manufacturers an advantage to not pay taxes, litigate in foreign courts, and give compensation to pharmaceutical companies against possible lawsuits for product defects

.

It is a way to ensure that Argentina has a supply of the plague remedy demanded by laboratories around the world.

They take advantage of the fact that the business was invested: before they tried to get the vaccines to the governments, now they are the ones who demand their products from them.

The general vote on this route for a

–that facilitate costs and reduce responsibilities– was with a surplus of votes, 230 to 11, with 8 abstentions.

But in particular, the opposition raised differences in two articles, because the norm did not foresee some institutional controls.

This caused a generalized abstention and articles 8 and 9 of the bill were voted with only 127 votes - two less than the number necessary for the quorum, 19 against and 97 abstentions.

: that individuals who litigate against the laboratories can do so here and not in New York;

that manufacturers alleviate access to confidentiality, or that they submit everything to the analysis of the General Auditor of the Nation.

The abstention was negotiated with surgical care by the opposition, so that the law would come out, but it would be clear that they did not approve of the ANMAT being bypassed for the authorization of the new product - it will only do one registration - and that they did not agree either on the fast track.

The abstention dampened the rejection attempt, which was disrupted by the governors of Cambiemos, among them Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, who commands one of the districts where the bug has hit the most, lest they be left out of the future distribution of vaccines.

Likewise, the opposition subjected the ruling party to legislative rigor, because there had not been enough debate.

They gave them the law, but with a chirlo.

A symbolism by which Máximo Kirchner bleeds when he complains about Together for Change, with the litany "They want to condition us and we are the government."