Ignacio Zuleta
09/13/2021 8:24 PM
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 09/13/2021 8:24 PM
"
Everything that multiplies by Cristina, gives Cristina, that is, zero, as in arithmetic
.
"
It is the most lucid opinion of a
government
insider
, who mourns from within. Perhaps the unity of Peronism was a passing fantasy that frustrated Cristina Kirchner herself, who allowed unity in 2019 by yielding a presidential candidacy. If that were the case,
Peronism is already divided
: the provinces administered by that force were defeated by an opposition that did not increase the historical percentage of their votes - 41.40% national this Sunday against the 40.28% of Macri-Pichetto in 2019 The Peronism of the interior heard the slogan of Olivos that this was a plebiscite of the national administration
and it did not help at all
to win Alberto-Cristina-Massa.
And if Peronism is united, that of Together for Change
was a feat
: to beat united Peronism.
It is not a play on words, because Sunday's result opens a period of digestion of the schism - another one - of Peronism.
It remains to know when it will be formalized and
who will be
the division's
midwife
.
The Peronism of defeat always leads to schism.
Elections passed 2021. Front of All Bunker.
Photo: Jose Brusco |
pool argra
It is not news for that force, which has already split several times since the transition.
In the '80 Menem vs.
Cafiero, in the '90 Menem vs.
Duhalde, in the first decade of the century, again Menem vs.
Duhalde-Kirchner, who won the 2003 presidential election along with most of the PJ governors.
In the second decade Massa vs. Cristina. The consequence was the defeat of another Buenos Aires presidential:
Scioli against Macri in 2015
. Peronism
joins only if there are scenarios of triumph
. At the slightest sign of risk, the chiefs of the interior retreat to avoid the splinters. They did it in 2015 when many of them went to the presidential STEP with a short list. Or when they conditioned their support on Cristina not being a candidate for president in 2019.
They feared defeat.
Nothing new under the sun, like that Peronism has lost all mid-term elections - in which there were no executive elections - to the non-Peronist vote: 2009, 2013, 2017, 2021. In 2017, Peronism also lost 13 provinces, including the largest such as Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Santa Fe, Mendoza, Entre Ríos and CABA.
This Sunday he added some more.
A decisive factor has been the lack of leadership, or its failure, in districts like Buenos Aires.
The lament of the Instituto Patria, expressed this Monday by
Cristina to some governors who heard her anger
, is that the efficient factor has been the abstention of those who could raise that floor of 31% of Peronism in Buenos Aires.
“In 2017, with Massa out, Cristina got 700 thousand more votes than FdT on Sunday. Where would they go, if there is neither politics nor economics here? Cristina adds as an argument that with a salary below inflation "you will
see these results
.
"
The salaried middle-class suburban with jobs in the State - police, teachers, health - has not had updates and the signs it perceives are of adjustment. They did not go to vote for Cambiemos.
They went home
. The estimate that there are more than two million votes that fed the highest abstention of the transition provides a key data for the result in the metropolitan area. It is also expected in the productive interior, attacked by measures such as the closure of meat exports that affects the cattle provinces. You have to be willing to make La Pampa Peronism lose its first election since 1983. La Pampa is a cattle province. The vote of the productive center of the country - Córdoba, Santa Fe, Entre Ríos - replicates the results of 2009, after the war in the countryside.
At the same time as these comments by Cristina, Macri had lunch alone with Miguel Pichetto in his office in Olivos and they shared the other argument that completes the explanation:
the armored unit of the opposition, even if it hurts
.
And a brushstroke for the November campaign: they don't have to get us votes from the right.
Mauricio Macri and Miguel Pichetto.
But other records appear that illustrate the explanation.
First, the strategic error of the ruling party in stating that these primaries were a plebiscite of Alberto's administration.
Not as a joke we should encourage such consultations.
Plebiscites are charged by the devil, says an old political saying.
And stupid shoot them, like firearms.
A risky enormity from which the opposition differentiated itself with the strategy of provincializing the PASO. For a government that has not started its administration, due to the inherited economy and the plague, it
was an act of disproportion to expect it to be rewarded by the vote.
The
hybris
-desmesura in Greek is what the powerful melted down in any tragedy. And less if he put as a candidate for deputy for Buenos Aires the Minister of Health of the district where the plague raged, with more deaths and infections.
The result demolishes the legend of “Cristina, the iron lady”, an infallible strategist and “with such eggs” (according to Felipe). He does not achieve anything that he sets out to do, neither personally nor politically. Difficult to sustain it
, if the Senate dedicated itself to being a spokesperson for the time tunnel
to fight a battle against the government that succeeded it in 2015. All the closings of José Mayans, in each session, were dedicated to punishing Macri. Nor can it mobilize structural projects - judicial reform, procurement - which now
go to the archive
if the loss of seats announced by this STEP is confirmed.
The
legend
of
Maxi Kirchner
also
falls
as "a great political cadre", silent, negotiator, brooding, hidden behind the curtains and with the infallible ability to manage the majority bloc. It is not enough for you to sign projects that others prepare for you - rates in cold areas, tax on the very rich, etc. It's like songwriters - who don't know theory or music theory - who buy tunes that they record to collect royalties.
The merit of the opposition has been to stay united, postpone leadership fights and simulate love when there are project dissidents.
Horacio Rodríguez Larreta is about to be received as a
tightrope walker
.
His risky partnership with radicalism produced one of the most notable developments in Sunday's result.
It is linked to the triumph of Santilli-Manes, that of Vidal and that of Juez-De Loredo.
He put a few boxes ahead of Macri, who mourns results in Córdoba and Santa Fe (Negri, Laspina).
Radical Vice Candidate?
He contributed, with the risk of the tightrope walker, to another novelty on Sunday which is the restoration of radicalism: he confirms the quota-part of power with Lousteau in CABA (50%); with the radicalism of Abad-Manes in PBA (40%); the candidacies of radicals in Santa Fe, with Carolina Losada (
the lady who needed radicalism to put in the presidential formula of 2023
) and
Mario Barletta
; and in Córdoba with
Rodrigo de Loredo
. This painting has the rogue charm of politics, because it is generated by Larreta, who may be the victim of the same ingenuity that makes the scale of competitors of his own presidential project grow.
It is also a strategic success to have facilitated competition between candidates, who were able to expand the windows for sectors of the non-Peronist family, angry with the leadership, but who would have been left out in the single list. "The opening is proportional to success," Emilio Monzó sanctioned at lunch in Roldán, which he shared with a few of his people, who are preparing to build their own block within the Cambiemos interblock. According to previous polls, there were 20% of disenchanted middle-class people who have been attracted by the Manes novelty.
In the Praetorian Peronism of Buenos Aires, the single list cut negatively. He demobilized leaders who could ignore the fate of the group. There are no large ballot cuts in these primaries, such as those that accounted for the defeat of Néstor Kirchner in 2009. In some municipalities the mayors barely got one point more than the national deputies. The result that minimizes the size of the Kirchner family now shows Peronism more dependent on the mayors, and less on Christianity and social organizations. It is the sector that the ruling party believes it will be able to mobilize for the project of turning the difference of the PASO, in its favor, in the general elections of November. Many of them
play a secret war
against the rule that prevents them from a third reelection. The result buries Axel Kicillof's attempt to dominate the Senate of La Plata, an area in which the UCR of Buenos Aires made the best choice on Sunday. Experience shows that many mayors of Peronism got on better with Vidal than with the solipsist Axel, whom Alberto
minimizes
more by calling him Alex. Everything has to do with everything.
The decline of Cristina in the Senate - far from 2/3 and with a quorum in danger - and of Massa in Deputies, does not change much the music in Congress either. The power of the ruling party was limited by a narrow difference, which is now shrinking. Peronism has already had a hard time reaching the number to meet and enact laws. The retirement mobility law came out in Deputies by 132 votes (three above the quorum, which is 129), the decriminalization of abortion barely achieved 131, just two above the 2018 vote, where it had had 129 to 125. The Cut of Larreta's police funds, even with the support of the governors, it also came out for 129, the wealth tax, for 133. And the budget, which is a law always negotiated, was approved by 138, nine votes above of the quorum.
A
weak government will be weaker,
and will have to resort to new agreements with the opposition.
He obtained them for the Guzmán laws - emergencies in 2019 and debt sustainability in 2020. The new administration needed them, and it was docile in asking the opposition for support.
Until the excess occurred, unearthing the ax of war with Macri-Larreta to demolish the CABA sanctuary.
It will cost them much later to negotiate with a reinforced opposition, which achieved what Peronism could not in 2016: maintain unity and not tear itself apart in both chambers.
Minister of Economy, Martín Guzmán.
Was the same fate of all the officialdom of the world defeated by the plague avoidable here? No. Globalization, Duhalde would say, is much greater than we believed. If you defeated Trump, Merkel and dissolved Podemos in Spain, what would you not do with a government that fought with society when it turned a health crusade into an opportunity for repression? Globality also stands out in the pininos of the indignant, who may have fueled the vote for Milei in CABA -which always existed, since Alsogaray, Cavallo, or Pinedo. Although without the ingredient of the demagoguery of the anger. In Santa Fe, in 2001, the sum of blank votes plus those challenged reached almost 42%. He outperformed the other candidates in what was called the "Clement vote," because a cartoon character appeared in many envelopes.This Sunday the blank vote has been the third force in Mendoza. In the outrage for the left, 23% of the votes of FIT-Unidad in Jujuy, third force behind Juntos por el Cambio (46.42%) and Peronism (28.32%) were striking. Equally striking was 7.49% of the FIT, no less than La Matanza.
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