Natasha Niebieskikwiat
07/05/2021 15:38
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 07/05/2021 3:38 PM
The Government suffered a diplomatic defeat this Monday when the
Colombian Sergio Díaz-Granados
, a popular former Minister of Commerce and Industry during the government of Juan Manuel Santos,
was elected as the new president of the Development Bank of Latin America, the former Andean Development Corporation.
.
On the way was the Argentine candidate Christian Asinelli
, current Undersecretary of International Financial Relations, whom Alberto Fernández ran for just weeks ago to head the former CAF, which is the second largest banking entity in the region and has a
fund for infrastructure projects. for $ 28 billion.
Ten supports were needed to win between 19 members
who have the right to vote and Diaz Granado - who today represents his country before the IDB - obtained them.
The vote of the Andean countries that have two votes per country was crucial.
It was supported by Colombia itself, Ecuador, and at the last minute also Peru,
Panama and the private banks, which have one vote
.
SERGIO DIAZ GRANADOS.
Photo: EFE
The Colombian also achieved the support of Argentina's partners in Mercosur - each country one vote - which shows the bad relationship of the Kirchner administration with Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, that is, with Jair Bolsonaro and Luis Lacalle Pou, with the that has ideological and personal differences that also crept into this election.
Christian Asinelli, Undersecretary of International Financial Relations for Development, Alberto Fernández's candidate for CAF
The Government counted on
the votes of Bolivia, Mexico and Venezuela
- where the headquarters of CAF Development Bank of Latin America is curiously - and they anxiously awaited the positive vote of Peru where an unprecedented situation occurred.
Argentina had the support of Pedro Castillo
, winner of the elections in Peru, but who has not been able to be reconfirmed by the electoral courts of his country in the middle of the battle that his rival, Keiko Fujimori, mounted.
Hence the anticipated greeting that Alberto F. made him on Twitter.
But the outgoing president of Peru, Francisco Sagasti, had already pledged his support to Diaz-Granados, for whom Ivan Duque fought a fierce diplomatic battle after his former Minister of Economy Alberto Carrasquilla removed a first candidate, dragged by social protests in Colombia.
Sagasti never made it official that he was going to support Asinelli.
Furthermore, he loudly reproached the anticipated greeting of Alberto Fernández to Castillo, which he considered an interference in the affairs of his country.
In Peru there are resentments against the Argentine government because it was crucial in the fall from grace of the former president of CAF, the Peruvian Luis Carranza, although to tell the truth he resigned by virtue before completing his mandate due to the series of complaints of harassment that weighed against him.
Argentina tried unsuccessfully to postpone these elections.
This is the second international race that Argentina is playing
after the frustrated attempt to derail the candidate of Donald Trump in 2020, in the election of the president of the Inter-American Development Bank, the first entity in the region.
Then the Argentine candidate was Gustavo Beliz, secretary of Strategic Affairs.
He could not achieve it and today the Cuban-American Mauricio Claver-Carone directs the entity for five years, a period similar to the one that Diaz-Granados, 52, would have to direct the Development Bank of Latin America.
One of the most curious situations of the election is that Beliz and Asinelli had to travel to Mexico -where this Monday's election was half face-to-face and half virtual-
in a plane loaned by the Chaco government, since there are no flights between Argentina
and that country due to the pandemic restrictions as they reduced flights everywhere.
SERGIO DIAZ GRANADOS.
Photo: AFP
In the Government there were internal reproaches on Monday. Just as they considered that Alberto has to consolidate once and for all the link with Mercosur, where Argentina is an outcast, he also reigned against Foreign Minister Felipe Solá, who is blamed for a lack of diplomacy. The same happened in the fight for the IDB, where neither the minister nor Beliz would have fought too much for a frustrated candidacy that later costs the Fernández government. Anger also prevailed at his absence from the country for two weeks, on a trip where in a pandemic situation, only the Decolonization Committee in New York and the G20 in Italy were considered important.
Solá is only returning this Tuesday
, on a tour that involved a trip to Tunisia and a stop in Vienna, in meetings with Argentine ambassadors.
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