Federico Mayol
04/10/2021 11:31 PM
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 04/10/2021 11:31 PM
─Has your candidacy in the Province spoken with the actors of Together for Change?
─Yes, I have it discussed.
I have a lot of contact with Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, with Martín Lousteau, with many actors;
María Eugenia Vidal herself, Diego Santilli, Cristian Ritondo.
The truth is that it is a natural thing, it is hardly spoken.
─But do you feel represented by Together for Change? Because he does not participate in any party meeting.
─Because I don't have any formal place.
I feel represented because it is very heterogeneous, and I feel represented for generating a better political alternative to the current government.
─He always emphasized moderation and leaders such as Rodríguez Larreta or Lousteau, with the idea of repelling extremes. How do you do with the current crack?
─Nothing has changed.
It is clear that those of us have a way of doing politics that is much more central, seeking dialogue, and there are other positions that tend to play to extremes than the truth that it is a phenomenon not only in Argentina, but also worldwide.
That play from the extremes pays off electorally as a result of society's uncertainty.
Who is placed in that place has much more certainty than who has to establish a dialogue and have nuances.
I think the actors who preach moderation have grown much more than those who preach the extreme.
I will never give up.
I do believe that today the space has more actors with that attitude.
I add Vidal, who I have listened to lately ...
─But he hasn't spoken for a long time ...
─Next week he presents the book.
I know her, I think she is going to make a political decision to work on the side of the moderates, of consensus and dialogue.
─But the toughest have also grown a lot, such as Mauricio Macri and Patricia Bullrich, and the former president seems to be leading JXC today.
─But in public opinion, because extreme positions have much more attraction in the media and on the networks.
Of course, the preponderance of Mauricio Macri is natural for having been a former president.
Those speeches, from the marketing point of view, are very effective, but when it comes to managing, it is very difficult to transform reality.
The tacticism, the campaign and the marketing have eaten up the governments.
Today in governments there is no longer a strategy, this same government continues to campaign, like the previous government.
─In this scenario, do you see Rodríguez Larreta uncomfortable, stressed by the extremes?
─No, I don't see it uncomfortable.
It is the moment to make an effort and to put a lot of will towards seeking the encounter with the other.
We have to look for the statesman, and the statesman is in the center.
Rodríguez Larreta is convinced, Lousteau is convinced, Vidal is convinced and I am convinced.
─Talk about agreements, and on March 24 Cristina Kirchner asked, for example, to make an agreement between the ruling party and the opposition.
─I agree, but I do not agree to previously announce the topics of an agreement.
We have to go back to the reserved meeting, if it doesn't end up being political marketing.
All agreements have prior reservation moments.
Once it entered the media and the networks, it will surely be impossible to achieve that goal.
─Does your electoral objective for this year aim to be governor in 2023?
─There is a long way to go for that.
I'm going to prepare to be governor, but it's not up to me.
Monzó aims for the governorate of the province in 2023, but says it does not depend on him.
Photo Constanza Niscovolos.
─Since we are talking about the province, how do you rate Vidal's four years as governor?
─He did what he could with the system.
I think that today, if it were for a second round, I have no doubt that it will break the system.
─Did you make friends with her?
─I made friends with myself first.
In order to befriend others, you must first befriend yourself.
They are many years of great tension.
I finished on December 10, this confinement suited me very well, because first I did a voluntary one and then I entered the compulsory one.
It was very good for me to heal.
From there you go in to apologize and you realize with all the people that you did not act well.
─And did you have to apologize many times?
─Yes, I had to call ten people.
─And that list includes Vidal?
─We were talking to her and the truth is that we turned the page.
─Do you think you are the best candidate this year in the province of Buenos Aires?
─She has to say it.
─And Santilli?
─Also.
They all have a good image in society, if we start from there they are good candidates.
─In that list of ten people to whom you apologized, does it include Macri?
─Not because with Macri it is another type of relationship.
I apologized to who I felt I had to apologize to.
─ How long have you not talked to Macri?
─ I have not spoken since November 2019, a month before the end of the government.
─ Did you invite him to the book presentation? Why was he one of the few who didn't?
─No.
It seems to me that because of the relationship we had, rather than an invitation to a book, we deserve a personal conversation.
─And did you read your book?
─No.
─Do you still believe that both Macri and Cristina Kirchner should retire, as you said at the time?
─I did not say the word retire.
I keep saying exactly the same thing: I think it is an important contribution for the country that the presidents who finished their mandate have a more magnanimous position as advisers than occupying permanent political candidacies.
Retirement is that they go home, quite the opposite.
Today I see them both very current in the situation.
I want them to be the articulators of the political agreements.
─You and other PJ leaders expected a more central government of Alberto Fernández, were you disappointed that it has gone to the extreme?
─I am disappointed by Alberto as I was disappointed in my own space when he ran to the extreme.
That is not the way.
Alberto had a great opportunity, I saw a Peronism with some hope that it would assume a more central leadership.
I speak of governors and mayors.
It obviously disappoints me.
─Have you not talked to him in a long time?
─ Long ago.
It would be good to return to the old normality, I would like the radical party and the PJ that I lived in another era, where there was dialogue between the different actors.
But the same thing happens on one side and the other, they get feedback between La Cámpora and the extremes of the PRO, and they remain in force on the political scene as a result of that feedback.
─And how do you make an agreement then?
─
We need the elections this year and next.
We need to triumph the actors who proclaim consensus and moderation, and so far it has not happened.
─Next week, as he said, Vidal presents his book, and it began to transcend that he wants to be president in 2023. Do you see her as presidential?
─Yes, totally.
I see it well, it comes at a time in his life ...
─What explanation do you find for the popularity of the former governor? He could not re-elect in the Province and the management did not leave great transformations.
─There is a very logical explanation, which is the first, and that is that whoever continues you did not improve the situation that you left behind.
Cristina would not have returned if Macri had had a management that achieved the preference of the majority of Argentines.
Many times the one who comes is the one who puts you in a place of revenge.
"This confinement suited me very well, because first I did a voluntary one and then I entered the compulsory one," says Monzó.
Photo Constanza Niscovolos.
─But Axel Kicillof still has more than two years of management left.
─It does not matter, but surely if the one that happens to you stands out, the amnesia of society will be immediate.
When this does not happen, people long for the past, or someone who gives them some hope.
In Argentina we tend to look back, unfortunately.
That is an emotional and human factor.
Some of that has to be in the life of María Eugenia.
The second point is that for the people he is a person who has been honest and who has made an effort to change the province of Buenos Aires.
And it is prepared.
This is not minor.
With these elements, people see her as a figure with the potential to be a candidate for president.
─Listening to Monzó speak well of Vidal is strange.
─I'm going to be honest: I proposed to Macri that Vidal be a candidate for president in 2018. I was the first that I should have told him that.
It was in October 2018.
Still with the enmity he had with her at that time?
Yes sir.
He did not speak to me.
Today I say the same: María Eugenia Vidal is a very good candidate for president.
I believe that Rodríguez Larreta, Vidal and Lousteau are good candidates for presidents in this space.
Be careful, so can Bullrich or Alfredo Cornejo.
─But if you had to bet a few pesos on any of them, who would you do it for?
─ (Laughs) Today I take care of the pesos, I'm going to play them, but later.
A man from Buenos Aires who wants countrymen in the Province
Emilio Monzó, the former president of the Chamber of Deputies, resumed his dialogue with Vidal.
Photo Constanza Niscovolos.
For Emilio Monzó,
Eduardo Duhalde "was the last Buenos Aires leader with a national political volume
."
That the former president of the Lower House has already signed up as a competitor in this year's legislative elections to seek in any case in 2023 the governorship obeys a logic that, according to him, should prevail in provincial territory: that the governors return to to be countrymen.
"Buenos Aires residents, since 1860, have been voting for the president of the Nation as if he governed the province of Buenos Aires, we do not know who the governor is," complains the former deputy.
It was one of the debates that was raised towards the end of 2018 within the Buenos Aires macrismo: the possibility that María Eugenia Vidal, at that time a public enemy of Monzó, would unfold the elections and seek re-election unleashed by the fate of
Mauricio Macri
.
Monzó, however, goes further: he says that the provincial Legislature must be reformed and that it becomes "unicameral", even if that means going against the entire political system of the Province.
System of which, until now, the former head of the lower house is a part.
"Yes, me too, but it doesn't go any further! We have to decentralize resources.
There are 50% of the poor in Greater Buenos Aires
", he is sincere.
It even asks to divide not only La Matanza, the most populous district of the suburbs, but also municipalities such as Merlo or Lomas de Zamora.
"We are at a limit point, COVID is a before and after.
We all fail
. I have been in politics for 30 years, and I make an effort from my place. If I have to be governor, the first day I propose a reform of the Constitution" , he cheers up sitting in the huge living room of his apartment on Montevideo Street, in the Buenos Aires Retreat.
The same place where
Elisa Carrió
and Macri finished sealing their political alliance, in the summer of 2015.
Although he has already warned of his electoral ambition, the former mayor of Carlos Tejedor has it difficult.
The polls do not favor it.
In particular, because he
always moved much more comfortably behind the scenes
.
As a shipowner.
In the thread, as they say and claim.
The last time he competed as a strong candidate was in his municipality, in 2003, 18 years ago.
There was no Tik Tok or social media.
He still does not get used to it, despite, for example, the fanaticism of his daughters for these platforms.
To top it all, the curse of the porteños crossing General Paz Avenue, no matter how bad it is, is still the order of the day.
Not only for Vidal, who has yet to define his immediate future:
Diego Santilli
, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta's delegate, has been
appearing
for months
.
The raffle of possible applicants in Buenos Aires territory - also includes
Jorge Macri
and the radicals - still has no winner.
And it is burning.
A few days ago, for example, the mayor of Vicente López pointed directly at the former deputy.
Said it's not part of JXC.
All the members of the monzoism came out to answer him.
Monzó, who for four years almost did not set foot in the Province due to his confrontation with vidalism, the Buenos Aires intrusion bothers him: "It bothers, but it is a reality, if it continues to happen it is by mistake of ours."
If it happens again, it abounds, it is a new failure of themselves.
The Buenos Aires people.
Itinerary
A lawyer graduated from the UBA, the son of a Spanish medical father and a teaching mother, he joined the PJ after serving in the military in the Ucedé and was mayor of Carlos Tejedor, his hometown, from 2003 to 2007. Former deputy for the Front for Victory He worked in the Buenos Aires government during the administration of Felipe Solá and served as Minister of Agrarian Affairs in the Daniel Scioli administration in the conflict over the 125, until he was fired by Nestor Kirchner.
Later he was one of the main political shipowners of Mauricio Macri's campaign and presided over the lower house in the four years of the Cambiemos government.
Married to Karen Sánchez and father of 5 children, in 2020 he founded the consulting firm Symfonia together with Rogelio Frigerio and Nicolás Massot.
Right now
─A project
: Modernize and make the Province viable.
─A challenge
: End poverty and inflation.
─A hero
: San Martín.
─A leader
: Nelson Mandela.
─A society that I admire
: The Mendoza.
─A memory
: The farewell of the deputies as president of the Chamber.
─A dream
: A prosperous Argentina without divisions.
─A pleasure
: Traveling with my children.
─A meal
: Roast.
─One drink
: Water.
─
A book
:
The Age of Tiredness
, of Byung-Chul Han.
─A movie
: Notting Hill.
─A series
: Modern Family.
