The silent fight between Sergio Massa and Horacio Rodríguez Larreta

In April 1998 Carlos Menem, who no longer had re-election, appointed Palito Ortega Secretary of Social Development.

He wanted to position him to be his candidate to face Eduardo Duhalde a year later, with whom Menem was the protagonist of a fierce internal Peronism.

In a hurry, he put together "Orteguismo" coordinated by Pablo Fontdevila and made up of leaders such as Julio Mera Figueroa, Mario Das Neves and Aldo Duckler, and by a group of young people including Jorge Capitanich, Diego Santilli, Sergio Massa and Horacio Rodriguez Larreta.

The experiment failed, but several of those leaders, today, are protagonists.

A quarter of a century later, Sergio Massa and Horacio Rodríguez Larreta

but from different spaces, the Frente de Todos and Juntos por el Cambio, respectively.

Although the origin of both precedes Kirchnerism and Macrismo.

Unlike Capitanich, Juan Manzur, Eduardo de Pedro, Patricia Bullrich, Gerardo Morales, Facundo Manes or María Eugenia Vidal, Massa and Larreta star in a hand-to-hand fight to nullify the other.

Because the two dispute the preference of the productive and business sectors after so many years of preaching the path of moderation and predictability.

But doing politics, without regard.

“They are the only ones who bring

to the issue.

In Kirchnerism they are not only Taliban but they are 150 years behind, they are unviable.

And Massa summarizes a bit what traditional Peronism thinks.

And Larreta says the same thing in private as in public.

That the magnitude of the transformations is so great that, without a significant consensus, it is unfeasible”

, summarizes a businessman who participates in all the meetings of the productive sector and business associations.

Sergio Massa at the Annual Meeting of the UIAPoto Juano Tesone

That is why it is not surprising when in the political environment of the Minister of Economy they assure that the candidate of the ruling party must be the "complementary opposite" of the opposition competitor.

But how do you know who will be the candidate for Together for Change before the PASO?

They rule out that both Mauricio Macri and Patricia Bullrich

Larreta, that this situation will be palpable in the polls as of March, and that this scenario will make it possible to define who is the best to face the former president or the former Minister of Security.

Even, Chicanean,

. "

That reading that they make from massismo and La Cámpora, is supported by some unpublished surveys that indicate that

of Together for Change double the intention to vote for the head of the Buenos Aires government.

Those same works indicate that Massa loses ground with respect to Macri and Bullrich.

From Larretismo they refute the arguments.

First, they point out that they are

to harm who, they say, is the main opposition candidate.

Then they indicate that it is false that Larreta is falling or stagnating but, according to the permanent monitoring they carry out, he is the one with the

, the best negative image, the best ratio and has been growing since August of last year.

And facing the internal, they place him

Bullrich, his immediate competitor.

The poll war is on.

They believe that Bullrich's candidacy is convenient for Massa because it allows them to retain the Province of Buenos Aires and become competitive in the general election and in the ballotage.

On the other hand, Larreta can take the province from them.

At the moment, the construction of the image of Massa and Larreta is very different.

The team of the mayor of the City has put into practice the deconstruction of his correct, stiff, careful image, and has gone on to show him walking like a Beatle along a pedestrian path, swimming in a lake with a cap, surfing with the help of a instructor or with a face full of flour in the traditional carnival of Jujuy.

A risky bet to popularize his image, which is recognized throughout the country.

The situation of the Minister of Economy is more complex.

Its objective, and that of the Government and of Christianity, was to bring monthly inflation down to around 3-odd percent with March or April as the deadline, because the lists of candidates must be presented in June and the idea was to show for several months price stagnation.

But after the initial 6% in January, and the projections for February, the plan has become

.

Massa often tells his collaborators that he will continue to fight and that he will do everything possible.

But he has also begun to point out that he will leave as the Minister of the Economy who, without adjustment, in one year halved

.

When he took office it was 7.4% per month and he intends to reach

in some month , although this does not imply a trend.

they claim to have heard him say.

With Cristina Kirchner out of the electoral competition, the only competitive bet is that of Massa, who

because the management does not support him.

Any other candidate does not have the guaranteed K-vote floor and will have to fight to retain them, instead of going out to hunt votes.

Horacio Rodriguez Larreta at the meeting of the Council of the Americas.

Photo: Guillermo Adami

Larreta, meanwhile, must deal with the internal one in which he fights head to head with Bullrich, who has earned the attention of the electorate based on a harsh speech.

And with Macri, who does not define whether he will compete or not, and whose figure can become a

for any candidate for the presidency, causing the same thing in Together for Change as Cristina Kirchner or Alberto Fernández did in the Frente de Todos:

The differential of the head of the Buenos Aires government -for better or for worse- with respect to Bullrich and Macri is his commitment to a consensus with non-Kirchnerist Peronism.

He calls himself the one embodied by governors such as Juan Schiaretti, Omar Perotti, Gustavo Bordet, among others.

.

The other problem that Larreta has is Milei, who seems to consolidate around 20 points if he is the JvC candidate, but which decreases if the candidate is a hawk like Bullrich.

But as Carlos "Chacho" Alvarez used to reflect,

“There are two turning points that can affect us, and a lot.

One is on

, the closing of lists.

Because one thing for the market is that Sergio is a candidate and another that he is not.

The second moment is

, one day after the PASO, because the same thing that happened to Macri could happen to us after losing”

, shoots a pro-government official.

It refers to that black Monday of August 12, 2019 when, after Alberto Fernández took 15 points from Macri in the PASO, the stock market fell 37.9% in pesos and 50% in dollars;

the dollar jumped 19% and during that month registered a rise of 35.8%.

Hence the proposal made by some Peronist governors to the President at a dinner last Wednesday in Olivos to

and bring them to September, so that there is only one month, and not two, between the primaries and the election.

And limit any negative reaction from the markets.

However, in the ruling party they reject this theory because the electoral law should be reformed, which is unfeasible in Congress;

and they remember that Macri was able to react by defaulting on the debt in pesos and calming down the financial sector.

According to some samples that nest in few official offices, today, in all scenarios, the Frente de Todos

national ballotage.

The red light comes on because in two combinations, he risks

, behind Together for Change and Milei.

Although in one of them JvC could also be left out of the second round.

The main discussion for a sector of the ruling party is whether they are in a position to

of Buenos Aires with Axel Kicillof as a candidate.

But while some say that he is the best candidate, others argue that he does not even retain Cristina's Buenos Aires votes.

A key legislator in the ruling party launched a premise with some logic in these critical moments of Kirchnerism, but also with resignation.

look too

Larreta thinks about the alternation, with Macri with power and Morales as vice candidate

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Midnight tension: Cristina Kirchner's move that cornered Alberto Fernández and a bad omen