Mauricio Macri follows to the letter the manual of every former president who fights to
retain his power
and finds himself faced with two paths: to be a candidate for the Casa Rosada again or to have a decisive influence on his eventual successor or successor.
The
greatest risk
for someone like him, who was always the boss - in the companies of his father, Franco;
in mouth;
in the PRO;
in the City and in the Presidency - is to announce that in the coming stage, before the eventual return of Junto por el Cambio to power, it will no longer be.
One of the classics of political literature
"La silla del Águila
", by the Mexican Carlos Fuentes, devotes a good part of the work to describing how power can slip out of the hands of a President -it is also applicable to a former president- when he
designates to his
dolphin
It happened to him in part in the City, which he governed between 2007 and 2015, where Horacio Rodríguez Larreta made him forget in his eight years the two previous terms of the one who appointed him his dauphin.
However, Macri retains the power derived from his presidency and from having been the only non-Peronist leader in three decades to finish his term and confront Cristina Kirchner.
If the PRO leader announced today that he will not compete, a process of enthronement of who would replace him would immediately arise: Larreta, Patricia Bullrich or María Eugenia Vidal.
That it would be consolidated if any of them reaches the presidency.
After a month of his European tour, in which he posed for a photo with Leo Messi and "Dibu" Martínez with their wives after obtaining The Best awards, in addition to teaching at the University of Bologna and fulfilling his role in FIFA, Macri will return this week to Argentina.
And he will not be in an inadvertent way.
He will present his book "For what" in Rosario, no less than, crossed by drug violence and by the controversy between an insensitive and negligent Kirchnerism, and an opposition together with a citizenry that demands a State that protects them.
But strategically, Macri would extend the uncertainty
during April
about whether or not he will be a presidential candidate in the JxC STEP.
Despite the fact that some leaders rushed to “retire” him, the idea is to keep that possibility alive.
Can Together for Change afford to have that definition open?
Mauricio Macri was shown with his cousin Jorge Macri, in a signal for the candidacy in the City.
Larretism no longer hides that behind Macri's movements, meeting with Facundo Manes -a recurring critic of Larreta- or alone for an hour and a half with Jorge Macri, marking that he is his favorite in the Buenos Aires election and making it clear that he will do everything Everything possible so that Martín Lousteau is not the next Buenos Aires Head of Government, is his intention to mark who is in charge in the PRO and preserve that power.
The answer is,
"if Macri is a candidate, Horacio will face him."
Bullrichism is more blunt.
Close to Patricia, they assure that she established a relationship of trust with Macri in which they can talk about everything, but always with the clarity that
the responsibility of the Government belongs to the President
.
“It is not a pact or an agreement, at least in the case of Patricia.
We don't know if from Larreta
”, chicanean in the environment of the pre-candidate.
Those who regularly dialogue with Macri offer two definitions.
No presidential candidate has his support, and it is unlikely that he will compete in the primaries
.
They also say that with him the threat from Javier Milei would never have grown "because he occupied that place" on the right of the coalition.
Message for the Buenos Aires Head of Government.
There is a conviction that the former president would win the internal one but doubts are raining in the general election and even more so, the level of conflict of a possible second term.
In any case, a PRO legislator paraphrases the role of Cristina Kirchner in 2019:
"With Macri alone it is not enough, but without Macri it cannot be done."
Other definitions emerge in the hard macrismo, above all, with respect to the City.
That Jorge Macri should be
the sole candidate
of the PRO, that he is the only one that beats Lousteau because his differential is management, and that
"if the radicals seize the City, they will crash it."
An underground debate emerges, and sometimes not so much, between macrismo and larretismo-radicalism that exceeds the candidacies and has to do with the policies that a government of Together for Change should carry out, which even ends up becoming a criticism of port management.
Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, Gerardo Morales, Martín Lousteau and Diego Santilli, in Mar del Plata.
Press: City Government
The point is
the efficiency and size of the State
.
For Macri and his supporters, the City cannot continue increasing spending, creating more taxes and forgetting about the private sector, in the midst of the current economic crisis.
Because there is growing
anger
from merchants and SMEs, overwhelmed by tax pressure.
“Radicalism believes that more State is always good”
, they question.
From there would come the strategy of
attacking Gerardo Morales and Lousteau
.
They remember that it was Macri himself who campaigned for the rejection of two laws that were discussed in Congress at the end of 2022 such as the creation of new universities, or the support of two UCR deputies in favor of a pension reform in Tierra del Fuego that enabled state employees to retire at age 55.
The rejection of a sector of the UCR to the former president is no longer concealed too much.
A national leader recalls that during Macri's administration in the Casa Rosada
"we raised taxes on the middle class to pay for social plans"
, recalling that the amount of benefits doubled from 250,000 to 500,000.
They also point out that during his two terms in the City he had a deficit in all but one year, and
the number of public employees rose
.
Only with Larreta was there a surplus, they argue.
Like the provinces governed by radicalism such as Jujuy and Corrientes.
“
The arguments are false.
What they actually hide is the objective of continuing to concentrate the power of the PRO, so as not to share it with the UCR and with anyone, if we win in the Nation and in the City;
and that makes them desperate”
, say voices from the centenary party.
In 2015, Macri's succession triggered a tough internal battle between Rodríguez Larreta and Gabriela Michetti, who seemed the PRO's favourite.
Macri came out to support his Chief of Staff, who finally prevailed and succeeded him.
Will the same thing happen again or is it a broken link?
One of the argumentative theories that circulate in the macrista habitat is that Larreta's mistake was
to dispute Mauricio's leadership before beating him and having power
.
Just as it happened when Néstor Kirchner won the legislative election against Eduardo Duhalde -Cristina Kirchner defeated Chiche Duhalde in the legislative election for the Senate- and then took his leadership.
They believe that this situation was taken advantage of by Bullrich to appropriate the former president's speech and show himself as Macri's heiress, a role that Larreta held until a year ago.
It seems that instead of diminishing, the differences in the PRO increase beyond the names.
And they invariably sprinkle Together for Change. How far do the opposition agree about which plan to carry out and what is the way out of the complex economic situation?
How solid is the partnership of the PRO, the UCR and the Civic Coalition?
look too
Macri vehement, Bullrich reaps and Sanz reappears for the third half
look too
Neither innocent nor outlawed: locked up
