They had started well.
So well that only 24 hours after taking office as president,
Alberto Fernández
traveled to Santa Fe to participate in the assumption of
Omar Perotti
as governor.
There was only one condiment that altered the mood of the head of state on that visit:
the air conditioning of the presidential fleet plane that took him to that province that was not traveling
- a legacy of the previous management, they now say in the entourage.
It was the time, late 2019, early 2020, in which the President threatened a much more solid leadership, in tune with the governors, to balance the power K.
"The governors deposited the idea that Alberto could put a stop to Kirchnerism. Over time, that was broken, and then a more convenient relationship was generated," they explained to this newspaper close to the Santa Fe governor.
"
Perotti, first of all, is a perottista
. He will accompany you as long as you do not interfere in his interests," they added.
Fernández and Perotti were never close, but there was mutual respect and a cordial relationship that ended up being broken
by the wave of violence that has plagued Rosario in particular for years and that has once again crept to the top of the public agenda these days, and that began to shatter the afternoon that the President announced, from Casa Rosada, the intervention of the Vicentín agro-export company, based in Santa Fe, and the sending of a bill for its expropriation.
Perotti, they swear in their province, he found out on television.
The lack of political muscle of the Government, the protests in the interior of the province, the objections of the opposition and the mistakes of the Frente de Todos forced the President to back down.
He then sent his chief adviser Juan Manuel Olmos to resolve the judicial issue.
Ten days later, the governor met in Olivos with the head of state and the leadership of the agro-export company to find a way out of the mess.
Perotti assured from the Villate street entrance of the presidential villa that the new proposal on the table left "aside from the expropriation project", contrary to the first official initiative.
In Santa Fe they remember that the provincial chief had to make the announcement alone, on the street, after the security of the villa accompanied him there in a cart of those that golfers usually use.
Vicentín was a witness case, but the first of a series of clashes with the Casa Rosada that included the request for impeachment to the Supreme Court and the claim for provincial co-participation -similar to that of the city of Buenos Aires-, the electoral strategy of 2021, the obstacles to biodiesel and meat exports, and the narco violence that does not give up.
"In any case, Perotti was never an easy governor," they point out from the presidential environment.
He is, for example,
one of the leaders of the interior who did not participate in the barbecues that Fernández organized at one time in Olivos
to try to recover some of the leadership lost in the face of the overwhelming centrality of
Cristina Kirchner
.
On the contrary, the governor felt closer to
Juan Schiaretti
from Córdoba , propped up, in part, by a political and media operator linked to both and other district chiefs such as
Horacio Rodríguez Larreta
.
He did not accompany, by case, the impeachment process to the Court.
"I was never going to do it, if the province had a claim in court similar to that of the City," they stressed close to him.
In the end, the Government resolved the claim: the announcement was made by former minister
Martín Guzmán
together with the provincial president.
The midterm elections also caused friction.
After meeting with Cristina Kirchner in the Senate and negotiating Marcelo Lewandowski as the main candidate for the lower house, Perotti telephoned the President to give him the news.
Agustín Rossi, still Minister of Defense, had made his nomination official outside of that agreement.
As reconstructed by
Clarín
, Fernández assured the governor that he would lower the official from the electoral race.
Never happened.
The unstoppable wave of violence in Rosario that frightened the Government due to the chaos of these last days, and the shooting against a supermarket in the south of the city of the in-laws of Lionel Messi, only made more noise in the relationship.
In Santa Fe they say that the Casa Rosada never took the issue seriously.
They omit, however, an important chapter in the saga: the time lost with the appointment of
Marcelo Sain
in the provincial Ministry of Security, now being investigated for alleged illegal espionage.
After being removed from his position, in November 2021, the former official was hired by
Aníbal Fernández
as a special advisor.
In the first days of February, Perotti sent a public message to the Government: he assured that the aid through federal forces was insufficient.
"Resolve it with your police
," the Minister of National Security replied.
According to official sources, the President privately used the same arguments.
Less than a month later,
a talk in between the weekend to tone down the dispute
-they had seen each other several weeks ago, in the middle of the request for a trial to the Court, outside the rest of the governors-, Fernández made official the dispatch of more gendarmes, Army engineers to urbanize popular neighborhoods and accelerated the disembarkation of a delegation from the Financial Information Unit (UIF).
Last Friday, the provincial chief visited the Casa Rosada.
But,
surprisingly, he did not meet with the head of state
.
Yes, with the Chief of Staff, and the Minister of the Interior, Eduardo "Wado" de Pedro.
In Rosario, and together with Perotti, Aníbal Fernández highlighted this Wednesday that we had to "go to the bone".
A lukewarm approach in a relationship crossed by a deep mistrust.
