Alberto Fernández said goodbye to the presidency of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) with a message that exhibited two characteristics.
His immutability to publicly navigate
the constant contradiction.
Many times bordering on the absurd.
In that tour, he also described the situation of a region that does not know how to accommodate itself to the global changes and uncertainties that derive from the long war that Russia unleashed in Ukraine.
It is worth stopping at the pearls.
The president warned in a dramatic tone that
"democracy is definitely in danger."
Isn't he right?
The problem is that said appeal was formulated
at the same time that he defended the regimes of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
Unpalatable for Gabriel Boric, from Chile, and Luis Lacalle Pou, from Uruguay.
To justify himself, Alberto developed a too vulnerable tirade.
“All those who are here – he maintained –
have been chosen by their peoples and their peoples legitimize them as rulers.
Therefore, regardless of how each people decides, in diversity we must respect each other and in diversity we must grow together”.
The invocation of such pluralism sounded misleading.
Alberto's government, perhaps because of the influence that Kirchnerism imposes on it,
establishes its international policy on neighboring Havana, Caracas and Managua.
Somewhat more distant from Santiago de Chile and Bogotá.
Only now interested in the violent institutional crisis in Peru, after Pedro Castillo's self-coup and his subsequent dismissal.
Watered by conflicts with Uruguay and Ecuador.
Almost alien to Paraguay.
Its political and geographical closeness is at this time with Brazil, since Lula returned to the Planalto in January, and with Bolivia as soon as Evo Morales made President Luis Arce win at the polls.
In both cases there are situations to underline that would judge that conceptual outline of Alberto.
Argentina ignored Brazil, its main trading partner, during the three years that the Kirchner administration had to live with Jair Bolsonaro.
The former president was originally voted in for him, as the President argued to justify other regimes that are not democratic.
There is no doubt that Bolsonaro had a fascist behavior that incubated the coup attempt last month when thousands of citizens tried to subdue the Planalto, Congress and the headquarters of the Judiciary in Brasilia.
It could be said that Bolsonaro was delegitimizing his origin in management.
But how then to explain that in the runoff that he lost to Lula he obtained a million more votes than in 2018?
Perhaps we should rethink, looking for substantial arguments, that phrase that says "vox populi, vox dei".
Voice of the people, voice of God.
The Bolivian case
Another striking case occurs in the link with Bolivia.
The Government condemned the coup attempt in 2019 that ended with the resignation of Evo and a turbulent transition that ended with Arce in the presidency.
The Foreign Ministry remained silent
when on December 28, in the midst of protests and strong repression, the governor of Santa Cruz de la Sierra and opposition leader, the right-wing Luis Fernando Camacho, was arrested without respect for his privileges.
Lula and Evo were the public partners chosen by Alberto to appear at the CELAC summit.
Perhaps the absence of Nicolás Maduro has ended up being a relief for the President.
None of the planned protest demonstrations that would also have caused him discomfort in his last stellar appearance at the regional level.
Hardly a symbolic internal victory of Together for Change that knew how to build a difficult public context for the visit of the Venezuelan dictator, which never happened.
It turned out to be a good excuse for Maduro who, it is known, only goes on tour abroad to countries where he has political guarantees.
Cuba, Iran, Russia, China, Nicaragua, Belarus.
Little more.
Regarding Argentina, the dictator has confidence in Kirchnerism.
In Christina.
Much less in Alberto, whose figure was reviled by the Caracas regime several times.
The last one: when a Venezuelan-Iranian plane was detained in Ezeiza in June 2022 after a surprise landing.
Its five crew members, suspected of links to terrorist organizations, were only released in October.
Lula complied at the CELAC summit, at the domestic level, with everything that was thought.
She left nods to the vice president for the alleged lawfare that has her in check with causes of corruption.
He was a helpful companion to Alberto and his troops who, like Kirchnerism, would think of clinging to the figure of the PT leader to go through the electoral campaign in which he intends to win a place.
The new president of Brazil, however, was careful not to cross any limits.
He knows the uncertainties that the presidential replacement in Argentina holds.
The dreams of the ruling party around Lula are multiplying.
Cristina goes to great lengths to proclaim her ban by making an analogy with what happened to the leader of the PT.
He was in jail when Bolsonaro won the 2018 elections.
For a cause of corruption that she was dismissed by the Supreme Court.
She considered that Judge Sergio Moro circumvented the relevant jurisdiction of the case.
The vice president has for now withdrawn from any candidacy.
She could appear even though she has a first instance sentence of six years in prison, for fraudulent awarding of public works for the benefit of Lázaro Báez.
That Kirchnerist fantasy exhibits a political impediment.
Lula returned to the Planalto
thanks to the fact that he expanded his alliance to the center-right.
His vice president is the liberal, former governor of São Paulo and old rival, Geraldo Alckmin.
He will face a Congress where he does not have a majority and key governorates (Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais) in the hands of opponents.
But he is sailing on
an economic legacy with one of the two lowest inflation rates in the world (5.6% per year in 2022) and reserves of over US$350 billion.
Logical question: how would Cristina go about designing an alliance of those characteristics?
How would she overcome the pitfall of her own ideology and of Kirchnerism?
This restriction has begun to spur many lucubrations in the President's men.
Those who accompany him with the idea of re-election.
Taking into account the fidelity of the hard core that responds to Cristina,
which candidates would be able to broaden the coalition from the center to the right, as Lula did?, they
ask.
There is no innocence in the interpellation.
They assume that Alberto would be the right person.
With the shadow of Sergio Massa, if the economy allows him to be competitive.
It would be, once again, the power of dreams that subtracts politicians.
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