11/13/2020 12:11
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 11/13/2020 12:11 PM
A little over a year after the presidential elections that ended Mauricio Macri's term, former adviser Jaime Durán Barba gave details of the campaign for the first time and revealed why María Eugenia Vidal did not accept to be a candidate for president, even though she had better image than the then president.
It was the beginning of 2019 when, in the midst of galloping inflation, a rising dollar and increases in poverty, the Ecuadorian consultant began to consider the possibility that the Buenos Aires governor would lead the presidential formula against the numbers against Macri.
"We told (Macri) that there was a very high risk of losing and, recounting an infidelity,
Macri asked us to do a very in-depth study on the possibilities of María Eugenia being a candidate
. He was perfectly willing if it was the best", the political consultant began, in dialogue with radio
Rivadavia
.
But the investigations he did with his team determined that Vidal had not won the elections either.
And for a central reason: "To be a candidate for that space you need
coherence
. It is not possible, as in other spaces, to spend your entire life insulting the President and then be a candidate. For María Eugenia to have a chance, she
would have had to attack the Macri's economic policy and being a traitor
, but she was not willing to do that. "
Vidal finally ran for reelection in the Province of Buenos Aires, but lost to Axel Kicillof.
Words more, words less, Durán Barba revealed that Vidal did not appear because he did not want to be a "traitor."
And he explained: "She is a woman of values and it
would have been absurd because many Macri supporters would also have been angry
."
The strategy, then, was to keep Macri in the presidential formula, to which they added Miguel Ángel Pichetto, and to go for the re-election of María Eugenia Vidal in the Province, two situations that did not end up.
Macri lost re-election in the first round against the formula of Alberto Fernández-Cristina Kirchner, while Vidal had the same luck against the economist Axel Kicillof and Verónica Magario.
Regarding the possibility of a doubling of the national and Buenos Aires elections, the advisor explained: "doubling the elections also led to the same thing, that Maria Eugenia made an election attacking the President, thereby losing again."
In the midst of the relaxed chat with Eduardo Feinmann, the Ecuadorian told another incident: when he told Macri to retire from politics, even before he was head of the Buenos Aires government.
"Macri always accepted the discussion. It is not that he did what you told him, but he never dismissed us for disagreeing. My solid bond with Mauricio began in 2004, when given a situation
I told him to retire from politics
. He had an image very bad and problems after the defeat against Aníbal Ibarra. I was wrong, "he recalled, laughing.
JPE
Look also
Key fact: how many people would “never vote” for the Front of All and Together for Change
In the Government they say that with the exit of the quarantine the demand for social assistance eased
