Guido Carelli Lynch
09/16/2021 7:57 PM
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 09/16/2021 7:57 PM
The beginning of the day encouraged the idea that a truce between Kirchnerism and the Casa Rosada was possible.
The vice president's public letter at 6:56 p.m. destroyed that illusion.
The phones of the officials who accompanied the President in Olivos stopped answering for several minutes.
Alberto Fernández found out, like the rest of Argentina, in real time.
"You have to have a cool head and think about the movements to follow," they replied very close to Fernández without specifying what the roadmap will be.
In the maximum secrecy, the ruling party ponders how to continue
.
Fernández had already canceled his trip to Mexico scheduled for Friday.
There Fernández planned to add an international bean to his administration: the presidency of CELAC, after the failures at the IDB and CAF.
In the midst of an institutional cataclysm, it was rendered ineffective.
Until the letter was published, some of the advisers closest to Fernández said
that the President would take a few days to resolve the new names in the Cabinet “without pressure”
.
And now?
Close to the President, they lowered the drama to learn of the vice president's statement live.
"This is always the case with letters," they explained.
This time the game is neither more nor less than the institutional system.
Very early in the residence of Olivos, the Head of State and Chief of Cabinet Santiago Cafiero began the day with a mission: to deactivate the march in support of the President that the Evita Movement and the organizations with officials in the Executive had called during the hours hottest Wednesday after the massive resignation of Kirchner ministers.
The operation to stop the march had begun at the Casa Rosada around midnight on Wednesday.
At that time, the territorial referents of the social movements, who were not yet at the forefront of the movement, were resisting.
“Why are we going to stop a march in support of the President and asking to strengthen unity.
There is no margin to stop it ”, they puffed out their chests.
Finally there was a margin, although -when the decision was made to stop the march- several assemblies had already mobilized to the City. From the leadership of the Evita they say that the decision was made to stop the mobilization in the early hours of the morning, when they saw the hand of the Government, La Cámpora and the Patria Institute behind the news on television that reported on the march behind. Cafiero and the Secretary of Parliamentary Relations Fernando "Chino" Navarro spoke by phone to assess the state of affairs. They agreed that the best thing was to deactivate the mobilization so as not to obstruct any possible rapprochement between the ruling party tribes. The President posted a tweet at that address.
It was not free, several "colonels" - as they call the neighborhood referents of the organization led by Emilio Pérsico - made their discomfort known. They were one of the few sectors that contributed militant muscle to the President's campaign. Distrust and suspicion with La Cámpora is long-standing. In the act of the national closure, "No one spoke to the boys," said an official who visited Fernández in Olivos, who stayed all day at the official residence. "Boys". This is how they refer in the ruling party to the organization that Máximo Kirchner leads with an iron fist.
The President finally decided to answer the challenge of resignations through a thread of tweets and in an interview with Página 12.
As expected, the president and those around him did not like the “filtered” audio of Kirchner deputy Fernanda Vallejos.
The President had spoken on the phone late at night with Sergio Massa for a long time.
Little is known of the content of that talk.
The head of Deputies, who on Wednesday met with the Kirchners and De Pedro in Congress, tries to be the guarantor of the unity of the Frente de Todos.
Near the President they lower the price.
“This is defined by Alberto and Cristina.
After Massa decides what he wants to do ”, they trusted.
Fernández secluded himself in Olivos with his most intimate circle
: Cafiero, the Secretary General of the Presidency Julio Vitobello;
that of Communication, Juan Pablo Biondi;
that of Legal and Technical, Vilma Ibarra;
the Deputy Chief of Cabinet Cecilia Todesca;
and the advisers Juan Manuel Olmos, Julián Leunda and Alejandro Grimson.
There he received the governors of Tucumán and San Juan, Juan Manzur and Sergio Uñac, who arrived as far as Buenos Aires.
From the top of the Government, it was whitewashed out of the microphone that the President would accept De Pedro's resignation;
an hour later, Vilma Ibarra denied it in front of the cameras.
In the adjoining office at the Interior Ministry, which had been closed all Wednesday, the doors were open, as if nothing had happened.
Pedro was not there, but his number 2 was, José Lepere, the Secretary of the Interior
who challenged the "ethical norm" imposed by the President to try unsuccessfully to prevent the then Defense Minister Agustín Rossi from running for office in Santa Fe. Lepere's excuse to continue in office was that his candidacy was not national, but municipal. In the political portfolio - headache - there was movement of officials as if nothing happened.
The Chief of Staff received, in a Casa Rosada where there were more journalists than front-line officials, Health Minister Carla Vizzotti and several of the secretaries who also passed through Olivos.
He left at 5:50 p.m. with a bag in his hand that fueled the curiosity.
Another false alarm: you always carry your laptop.
He was returning to Olivos, with the idea of discussing with the President the final package of economic measures that they hoped to announce in a phased manner;
the implementation of the taxable minimum that will rise to 175 thousand pesos and the sending of more aid to the provinces affected by the downspout of the Paraná River.
An hour later, the bomb exploded.
Look also
Cristina Kirchner's onslaught against Juan Pablo Biondi, the presidential spokesman
The complete letter of Cristina Kirchner against Alberto Fernández