In the midst of the internal and the economic crisis, the Government seeks to carry out an 'empathic' campaign

Federico Mayol

08/01/2021 7:57 PM

• Clarín.com

• Politics

Updated 08/01/2021 7:57 PM

In the midst of the internships and the change of ministers that Alberto Fernández was forced to implement, the Government in recent days defined its main objective in the face of the September primary elections: to

empathize with the electorate.

It was, as this newspaper was able to reconstruct,

the main message that the strategists of the official campaign delivered

in the two meetings that those responsible for communication and the candidates of the Province and the City had on Thursday and Saturday in Complex C, the bunker of the Frente de Todos of the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Chacarita, owned by Ignacio Saavedra, one of those in charge of the staging of the ruling party.

It had been a few weeks since the meetings of the spokesmen of the government coalition partners had been discontinued due to the negotiations around the closing of lists, which last weekend finished paving the way for the campaign and which left, as usual occur, a line of wounded.

At the meeting on Thursday, those responsible for the communication of the Casa Rosada, Kirchnerism, Massismo and the Buenos Aires administration - a dozen, between national and provincial officials -, were soaked in what will be

the campaign roadmap:

the idea of ​​showing a way out of the pandemic - in line with the slogan "the life we ​​want" with which two Saturdays ago they presented the main candidates of the City and the Province - and of

showing "closeness" to the electorate, punished for the economic and health crisis.

The same script that was repeated this Saturday in the talk that the Chief of Staff,

Santiago Cafiero

,

closed

with the candidates for national deputies from the Buenos Aires and Buenos Aires districts, in the warehouse where Fernández and Cristina Kirchner celebrated the triumph of 2019. The candidates, in fact, took supplies to use during the campaign.

Alberto Fernández, in Merlo, in an act with a campaign tone and seconded by Victoria Tolosa Paz and Axel Kicillof.

Photo Presidency.

"You

have to convey hope. Much emphasis is placed on the need to empathize with people. Do not relax, but show the future,

" summarized an official who participated in the meetings.

The Government does not want, in this sense, to present the midterm elections as a management plebiscite, but rather as an election centered on Parliament.

It was resolved, for example, that

the Profit project

that brought some relief to a sector of formal workers be used in the campaign.

It is that the beginning of the campaign finds the Frente de Todos once again involved in a series of tensions that were exposed last week due to the closure of lists, and amid concern about the impact that the advance of

the variant

may have

Delta

just when vaccination had accelerated at a good pace, but with a noticeable delay in the application of the second doses against COVID.

According to the public vaccination monitor, this Sunday little more than 25 million first doses had been applied.

And

seven million people had received both vaccines

.

In the ruling party, both the advancement of the new variants and the need to complete the vaccination schemes as well as the impact of prices in the campaign -especially in Greater Buenos Aires-, and the internal pulls are concerned.

The economy, for example, once again put

Martín Guzmán

at the center of speculation: the minister has maintained, for a long time, an oscillating link with the former President.

The "

Basualdo

affair

" surrounding the debate over electric power rates caused him to stumble in the consideration of the coalition partners.

The scourge of inflation did the rest.

Alberto Fernández with Cristina Kirchner and Kicillof along with the candidates Leandro Santoto, Victoria Tolosa Paz and Daniel Gollan Photo Presidency.

The need for the Government to empathize with the electorate has its correlate in the management announcements that will be seen more fluidly in the coming weeks.

Last week it was the turn of a youth employment program.

This Monday, Fernández will head virtually the expansion of the Now 12 program

. 

In this context, the changes in officials that the President was forced to implement due to the departures of

Daniel Arroyo

and

Agustín Rossi

once again revived the internal discussion about the functioning of the cabinet, criticized by its partners.

The head of state knows that he has to face an oxygenation of his collaborators.

But first he must resolve, once the incorporation of the mayor of Juan Zabaleta by Arroyo has been decided, the dance of names around the replacement of his Minister of Defense.

Fernández could not convince him to give up his candidacy in Santa Fe. And he decided to cast him on television

.

Rossi found out at the time, while casually heading to a TV studio.

He was not the only one: Cafiero also got annoyed on the

C5N

screen

.

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