With a video of just over two minutes, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta confirmed the decision that
implies a challenge and could mean a break in the relationship
with Mauricio Macri.
The head of Government announced that the elections in the City will be "concurrent" with the national ones, that is, the same day but with different systems.
In this way, the local candidates will be elected with a single electronic ballot and separated from the candidates for president, the scheme that Martín Lousteau was looking for and that
opened a strong controversy in the PRO and that in turn crystallized the two poles that were already being cut
in Together for Change.
As had already happened on Sunday, Macri strongly questioned the determination of his former chief of staff.
This time he went with a short post.
"What a deep disappointment
," he said laconic when reproducing a tweet from Maria Eugenia Vidal, the first one who had also emphatically rejected the competition.
After a while, Patricia Bullrich did the same.
To what extent was the link between Macri and Rodríguez Larreta damaged?
"Nobody can know it now, but Mauricio's disappointment is very great
," transmitted one of the leaders closest to the former president.
They did not speak before the video was released, and they did not speak during the afternoon either.
If Macri had been distancing himself from the head of government and showing signs of support for Bullrich, the episode could confirm that direction.
“
He is not going to do it so quickly, but it is already clear where he is not going to be.
What remains to be seen is the degree of neutrality”, they estimated in their Vicente López offices.
The former president had already said that
he would not be impartial but "equitable"
.
Other members of his small table preferred not to rush to discount a rupture and wait for the tension to drop and the outlook to settle before the stage of electoral definitions.
Buenos Aires administration officials revealed the perception that Macri will end up supporting Bullrich.
"I, as head of government, have the responsibility of deciding when and how to vote in the City
," said Rodríguez Larreta in the announcement published before noon, with the purpose of exhibiting
"authority and autonomy"
in the face of pressure from the founder of the PRO, firm promoter of his cousin Jorge Macri in the dispute for the main seat of Buenos Aires.
The head of government and his minister met this Monday in Colón:
they agreed to continue talking.
Rodríguez Larreta argued that the call on the same date as the national election
"saves time and avoids unnecessary expenses"
, and then justified the implementation of the single electronic ballot for local positions.
"It is a more agile, simpler, more transparent system and
it is a flag of the PRO that Mauricio started in the City in 2015
and that we also promoted together with everything Together for Change at the national level," he referred to Macri himself in that section. .
The announcement was supported by Lousteau and by the National Committee of Radicalism, led by Gerardo Morales,
another step in the consolidation of Rodríguez Larreta's agreement
with that sector of the UCR.
Also by Elisa Carrió, with a statement of support from the Buenos Aires Civic Coalition.
Despite her style, Carrió was on the “moderate” side in that
pole that began to take shape during the summer
, with the Beatle photo in Mar del Plata and then the meetings of the former deputy with Morales at his house in Exaltación de la Cruz.
From the other sector, criticism accumulated.
“The PRO and the Together for Change that we promised the Argentines is not this.
There is no personal ambition that can be above our values and the team.
We are the change or we are nothing, ”Vidal harshly crossed his ex?
ally of him
They both had dinner on Wednesday, before Rodríguez Larreta's trip to Spain, and in that meeting he had not confirmed the split.
But unlike Macri, this Monday the mayor of Buenos Aires called her before the announcement was made.
“It's very simple: coherence and conviction are the values we defend.
So:
'It's wrong to change the rules.
It's cheating', as Horacio Rodríguez Larreta said.
Today, he manipulated the electoral rules in the city of Buenos Aires four months before the elections," Bullrich said on social networks, with a video with statements by the head of government in November last year.
In addition to cutting more clearly the two spaces outlined for the national dispute, the confrontation raises
questions in the province of Buenos Aires
, with Diego Santilli propped up by Rodríguez Larreta and other aspirants to compete for the gubernatorial candidacy with Bullrich's ticket more Ritondo aligned with Vidal.
In this convoluted scenario, the mayors claim that the dispute for the presidency does not impact the municipalities to avoid favoring Peronism.
"It is striking that someone says that it is a disappointment that the law is complied with
," Lousteau dedicated to Macri.
With the concurrent modality, the senator will not have the difficulty of depending on a radical candidate for the presidency or the jerks in case Rodríguez Larreta and Bullrich authorized the ballot.
look also
The UCR supported Larreta and Martín Lousteau launched an irony for Macri for his "disappointment" with the split elections
look also
Javier Milei, very harsh with Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, after splitting the elections: he called him "sinister" and "capable of anything"