Guido Carelli Lynch
03/19/2021 18:21
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 03/19/2021 6:51 PM
The Electoral Chamber confirmed the
electoral calendar
this week
.
If there are no changes, on August 8 there will be PASO throughout the country.
However, the ruling party and the Casa Rosada do not abandon the plan to postpone the primaries.
President
Alberto Fernández
returned to address the issue with the governors of the North, during their meeting in Catamarca.
The head of state is convinced of the need to
avoid crowds
in the middle of winter, when the country could be suffering the lashings of
the second wave
that has the region in suspense.
However, he warned that if changes are not made in Congress, he will be obliged to comply with the schedule established by the electoral Justice.
"If there is consensus to change the calendar, those who have to move are the governors, because
I do not vote in Congress
, the legislators vote," insisted more words / words the head of state, according to officials present at the meeting.
The 10 northern governors had put the issue back on the agenda during their
penultimate meeting
, on January 20, in La Rioja.
Among the provincial leaders there was everything.
Gustavo Sáenz from Salta rushed in January to call the elections in his province for July 4, something uncomfortable for the arguments of the ruling party.
This Friday the Peronists pointed to the two radicals of the group,
Gerardo Morales
(Jujuy) and
Gustavo Valdés
(Corrientes) as the main interested in suspending or postponing the elections, a possibility that makes noise within Together for Change.
It is, strictly speaking, a half-truth.
Both accompany the initiative, but their relatives remember that it was two Peronist governors present at the meeting -
Juan Manzur (Tucumán) and Jorge Capitanich
(Chaco) - who promoted the initiative during a barbecue in Olivos, in December, after signing the new pact fiscal.
In Olivos.
President Alberto Fernández, Sergio Massa and Máximo Kirchner: three fundamental actors to define the electoral calendar.
“Today there is a pandemic.
Today is a serious complication.
We are going to have a weekend of strong mobilization for the elections, but in the meantime there will be a campaign, with all that that implies.
And in Corrientes we will have at least 3 elections.
We always had the same position.
Others have changed, ”Corrientes Valdés told
Clarín
, alluding to the elections for governor and local deputies, the national and general primaries and the crack that opens the possibility of postponing or suspending the STEP within the opposition.
Other governors who were in the meeting downplayed the President's comment and left open the interpretation of what he meant.
“It was a passing comment.
It was not understood
whether he said he was not voting because he is not a deputy or because
Máximo and Cristina Kirchner
are in Congress
, ”they argued.
Fernández not only spoke of the possibility of postponing the PASO with the governors.
The one-time suspension is no longer an option for opponents or officials, unless a health disaster occurs.
On Thursday afternoon, the President spoke in his office at Casa Rosada about the electoral calendar with the President of the Deputies
Sergio Massa
, who publicly supported the idea of concentrating efforts on the vaccination operation.
"Between
spending on tickets and spending on vaccines
, I prefer vaccines," Massa repeated a month ago.
Some time before, the leader of the Renovador Front had spoken in a reserved meeting with
Máximo Kirchner
and other referents of the Buenos Aires PJ about the elections.
The PASOs were part of the conversations.
In addition, the leader of La Cámpora and new president of the Provincial Justicialist Party, headed the meeting prior to the closing of the unified list on Monday, which he shared with mayors and national authorities.
There was a coincidence that there will be primaries, which will be fundamental to elect candidates and avoid dispersions in the districts where Peronism does not govern.
In the massismo they affirm that there is consensus within the ruling party and the opposition on the need to postpone the STEP.
They point out as a middle way the project of the radicals
Carla Carrizo and Emiliano Yacobitti
, close to
Martín Lousteau
, who propose declaring the primaries "not susceptible of being suspended", but they enable to shorten the time between the internal and the general ones to prevent the campaign spreads too much.
The assessment that they make in the presidency of Deputies collides with the positions of a fraction of the PRO, the CC and the UCR.
One of the authors of one of the
6 projects that would enable
modifications in the electoral calendar also relativizes the initiatives in electoral matters.
"We don't even know
when we are going to meet,
" he says.
The ruling party argues that their motivations for postponing the STEP lie in the health risk in the midst of the
slow vaccination campaign
and with problems in the stock of vaccines.
From the opposition they point out that the Government wants to change the date of the primaries to capitalize on the rebound in the economy and immunization against the coronavirus.
Measures for the North, vaccines and claims
The meeting with the President at the Center for Innovation and Technological Development of Catamarca was attended by the local governor Raúl Jalil;
from Chaco, Capitanich;
Valdés, from Corrientes;
Gildo Insfrán from Formosa, who was at Casa Rosada on Thursday;
Morales, from Jujuy;
Ricardo Quintela, from La Rioja;
Oscar Herrera Ahuad, from Misiones, the Salta Sáenz (Salta);
Gerardo Zamora, from Santiago del Estero;
and Manzur, from Tucumán.
During the meeting, the
vaccination operation
also sneaked
in
.
The head of state, after the national chain in which he referred to the global shortage of vaccines, anticipated that
more doses will arrive
in the
coming days,
although he avoided talking about dates and numbers.
Catamarca has already vaccinated 30 thousand people and expects to add 70 thousand applications to immunize health personnel and the population at risk.
In the afternoon, the President and Jalil visited a vaccination center and photos were taken with those present.
Fernández announced the
reduction of employer contributions
to northern Argentina to promote the
creation of new jobs
, a request from the provincial leaders who now asked to expand the benefits to the industrial and agro-industrial sector of the region.
The governors again asked for more subsidies for Transportation.
The minister of the area
Mario Meoni
presented during the meeting the disbursements of the national Executive to subsidize the transport of passengers.
The grants went from $ 2014 million in 2019, when Mauricio Macri was in office, to $ 5,809 in 2020 and $ 6,894 million in 2021. It represents an increase of 242 percent in the last two years but only 19% in relation to 2020. The governors also negotiate with YPF a special fuel rate.
The 10 provincial leaders of the North will meet again with the President next month in Misiones, in the fifth regional meeting.
"We must thank the President and the ministers. It is important to have a palliative for the industry and for the agribusiness," said host Jalil.
In the northern province they breathed with relief after the presidential entourage made up of the Secretary General of the Presidency
Julio Vitobello, the Chief of Cabinet Santiago Cafiero, the Ministers of Productive Development, Matías Kulfas;
Work, Claudio Moroni;
and Interior, Wado de Pedro;
and the Secretary of Communication
Juan Pablo Biondi
.
It was Fernández's first visit to a province after the stones in Chubut.
This time there were no regrets or reproaches to the presidential security.