The email that usually communicates
the presidential agenda went out at 10:07
p.m.
There, it was communicated that the President of the Nation would go to the province of Entre Ríos, accompanied by Minister Juan Cabandié to visit an environmental center for waste management in Concordia.
At 10:25 p.m., a rectification of the official agenda arrived
, where that trip to the Mesopotamian province was no longer there.
The detail was insignificant at first, but it hid a political fact:
Alberto Ángel Fernández was at that moment recording the video
where he would announce (the next morning) that he would not be the protagonist of the presidential fight and was getting out of a possible re-election.
The definition happened after the summit this Wednesday of the head of state with the Minister of Economy, Sergio Tomás Massa
, and with the head of the Central Bank, Miguel Pesce.
There, Alberto understood that he had to speed up a definition that he had taken for a long time: publicly communicate that he was not going to be a candidate.
Sergio Massa and Alberto Fernández, in the Quinta de Olivos on another day of maximum tension for the dollar.
Photo Twitter Gabriela Cerruti
Massa had complained in front of the President about the dissemination of a possible package of economic ideas that his chief adviser, the businessman Antonio Aracre, had raised with him last Monday, at a lunch.
The publication of the data in different media determined that Aracre was ejected from the Government and Massa experienced it as a victory.
But the volatility of the exchange market continued and Alberto Fernández listened to the requests of Massa and several of his closest collaborators.
For this reason,
he understood that political instability was detrimental to the Minister of Economy, who is in the midst of renegotiating with the IMF
-for the next three weeks- all of Argentina's agreement with that fund, with a focus on fiscal deficit targets and of the reserves.
Alberto left Olivos for an act in Mar del Plata.
And as Ignacio Ortelli recounted in Clarín, Fernández began to speak with his relatives when he returned from that trip.
He exhausted his cell phone in dialogues with his inner circle:
Santiago Cafiero, Juan Manuel Olmos, Vilma Ibarra, Julio Vitobello, Victoria Tolosa Paz and the chief of staff, Agustín Rossi
.
After that round, he wrote to the presidential spokesperson:
"Gabriela, let's do it," he ordered Cerruti
and they both locked themselves in Olivos to write and film the announcement.
Spokeswoman Cerruti's profuse communication team worked all night
, until finally at 9:53 this Friday, a tweet titled "My decision" came out.
Clarín had told, 40 days ago, that Alberto would appeal to a video to communicate his decision as to whether or not he would be a candidate.
It was speculated that he would do so on May 18, four years after Cristina Kirchner announced (also through a video and a tweet) that the Frente de Todos formula would be Alberto-Cristina.
But economic volatility precipitated things.
And Alberto Fernández will go to the meeting of the National PJ Council this Friday with the intention of showing that he was not stingy, that he will focus on management and not hinder the movements of Minister Massa but that he will be the "guarantor" that there will be
STEP (primary elections) in Peronism to elect the presidential candidate of the space
for this year's election.
It remains to be seen if he will be inclined to support Daniel Osvaldo Scioli (as his chancellor Santiago Cafiero advises him) or if he will bless his friend Agustín Rossi for that political battle.
"Finally, once we managed to prevent something from leaking!", an official close to Alberto F celebrated with a laugh
, who said he knew that the decision was expected and that only "the when and how" of the communication was missing.
look too
Alberto Fernández's motives: calm the markets, deactivate the K attacks and guarantee the STEP
Alberto Fernández announced that he will not run for re-election: through a video, he confirmed that he will not be a candidate for president