Nicolas Wiñazki
06/05/2021 10:01 PM
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 06/05/2021 22:01
The Minister of Security of the Province of Buenos Aires, Sergio Berni, became the leader of the government coalition that most
annoys
President Alberto Fernández. So much so that the Head of State wants that official to
resign
. It does not happen. Unlike. The confrontation between the two
escalates more and more.
The Head of State goes into a
state of fury
when he talks about Berni in private. According to unobjectionable sources in the Presidency, he describes it with
brutal adjectives
. The Buenos Aires minister knows the situation and escalates the conflict.
Last Tuesday, the Head of State spoke with the Buenos Aires governor, Axel Kicillof, to
ask him
that his rebel minister should completely change his attitude to subordinate himself to the policies of the Casa Rosada, stop making critical statements of the government's management , and I would have even suggested more:
that Berni resign.
I do not pass. The official happens to have a powerful political protector: Vice President Cristina Fernández. She decided that the Buenos Aires Minister of Security
continues in his post
. Another important dissent between the President and his vice.
The situation was described to
Clarín
by sources from the Presidency of the Nation and the Buenos Aires government.
Berni fights in public and criticizes in the media the National Minister of Security, Sabina Frederic.
She is a known inmate but it gets worse and cannot be solved. Gets worse. On Monday, May 31, Berni ascended the power scheme and demonstrated that
his new objective to lacerate in the media is directly the President.
In statements to the América channel, he made a serious accusation: "Unfortunately we do not have the support of the national government in matters of security in the Province of Buenos Aires," he said, more as if he were an opponent than a K leader. And he returned to his adversary Frederic, although already explaining that the problem he describes includes Fernández: "The minister handles herself in the Province as she pleases." And he advanced and advanced: "
I deeply regret that he lies to the President
(for Frederic), because in a province where security is a pending matter, we need the help of the National Government and that help should not only be economic. There must be commitment, work , knowledge, professionalism ".
Berni insisted, knowing what he was talking about, that is, more of the President than of his minister: "She believes that she can go from municipality to municipality distributing gendarmes", thus accompanying the mayors of those hot zones where crime does not subside. but it also grows: "It does it without articulating with the Police of the Province of Buenos Aires."
That plan, that of Frederic's dialogue with the communal chiefs of Buenos Aires, was the way in which the President decided to keep Frederic in office and also try to wear down Berni's figure.
The minister of Kicillof did not stop
: “It seems to me that Frederic does not understand absolutely anything of what this profession is about”
.
And he closed: "We don't even ask him to accompany us, we ask him not to hinder us anymore."
Those sayings were the ones that provoked Fernández's dialogue with Kicillof to try to get Berni to shut up or leave his post.
Frederic accepted that he does not speak with his counterpart in Buenos Aires and that he coordinates any security policy with the governor.
Fernández, as said, could
not bear the audacity
of the Buenos Aires minister and that is why he spoke of the public conflicts that he provokes in his Government.
But the minister is still in office.
Frederic replied to the criticisms of his rival, always in his own way and with a less confrontational style;
"Permanent coordination with the mayors is the mandate of the President."
The communal heads of the PJ of Buenos Aires do not have a good relationship with Berni
.
But even so, he let it transpire that he will not resign, and that even the media confrontation with the President
"has just begun."
Clarín
tried to communicate with the Buenos Aires minister but he had started a weekend trip to what he considers "his" city, the town of Santa Cruz on November 28, to which he went to help in the local hospital to fight the coronavirus, Berni he is a doctor.
The fight for months with Frederic has focused on controlling the agents of the National Gendarmerie that the Nation sent to different municipalities in Buenos Aires.
According to official sources, there are around eleven thousand five hundred.
Berni repeats that this figure is wrong, and asks the Casa Rosada to command that force that penetrated his district.
His plan is to geolocate each of the gendarmes through their phones to know where they are in real time.
It is evident that
Berni has the support of the K power in the Frente de Todos
: the one that always promotes actions from the shadows devised by Vice Fernández, and also with the support of Governor Kicillof.
In front of his trusted people, Berni always doubles the bet: "Why don't the officials of the National Cabinet deny me?"
No other leader of the Frente de Todos confronts the President in this way.
According to sources from the ruling party sector that is referred to under the leadership of Vice Fernández,
she also does not consider that Frederic does his job well.
Last Friday, May 14, while Cristina Fernández was once again President of the Nation due to Alberto Fernández heading an official trip to Europe, news surprised the vice-in-office of the Head of State for the worse. He let it transpire that he knew only thanks to the television news channels that a group of less than thirty protesters had cut the Roca railroad tracks to make an old labor claim visible. That "picket" caused the train service to be cut off. A crowd thus ended up piling up in the closed entrances of the Roca terminal in the Federal Capital, called, perhaps not without paradox, Constitución.
Thousands and thousands of people waited tightly packed, and angry about the delay in public transport, in the midst of the pandemic.
The version of "Christianity" is that the vice, who was in control of the Casa Rosada formally, complained badly because Frederic did not inform her in advance about the conflict and because it also took too long, always according to the same version reconstructed by sources. of the ruling party itself, in solving it to avoid a great and very possible source of contagion among the crowded users of the Roca.
In the Ministry of National Security, they affirm that they are unaware of the vice president's anger on this issue, and they deny it.
With what logic does Berni move, criticizing Alberto Fernández directly?
Is it another intern that makes the vice deepen to orade the National Cabinet?
What is the real benefit that can be obtained after stirring up a dispute of such a tone and on a crucial issue such as Security in the largest and most populous district in the country?
Berni has repeated in front of different police chiefs and politicians in Buenos Aires that Frederic does not inform him about the work of the Gendarmerie in the Province despite the fact that he himself expressly asked the President to correct this mismatch, although more than a year ago .
In the Ministry of Frederic they reply that Berni knows where the gendarmes are, but
what he really wants is to "command" that force.
The minister, meanwhile, continues to visit Buenos Aires municipalities together with mayors with whom she leads events on district security issues.
Examples: visited Mercedes to relaunch a stolen or destroyed car compaction plan;
He went to Ezeiza to accompany the former Buenos Aires Security Minister, the mayor of the place, Alejandro Granados, to deliver mobile phones to the Airport Security Police (PSA);
and he also organized in Almirante Brown an act to inaugurate a Volunteer Fire Department headquarters.
Will the President get Kicillof to silence, subordinate or remove Berni?
The sources that star in this plot coincide: vice Fernández decides.
And she, for now, doesn't want Berni to change her attitude.
Even the official insists that he will deepen his criticism of the Casa Rosada.
For many years, the K leadership has nicknamed him like this:
"El Loco"
.