It was an open secret.
Or, as we say in Argentina, President Alberto Fernández "did not give him the gasoline", the fuel, to dream of his re-election.
For this reason, when he announced that on December 10 he will leave, yes or yes, from the Casa Rosada, he barely opened up about the situation, although he opened a substantial question: will he go down in history as a lousy president or as a lousy president who in the end of his term at least he began to take the measures that had to be taken?
Let's start with the basics.
Alberto Fernández became president at the hands of the true and only leader of his political space, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who reserved the vice presidency for herself.
But the president never came to exercise as such.
He hardly exercised a delegated power.
He was the result of a coalition created to access power, not to manage it.
And that was noticeable from day one, with internal factions that don't even speak to each other.
After three years and almost five months in office, Alberto Fernández verbalized his extreme weakness this Friday.
He heads a coalition without management capacity, nor proposals to solve the pressing problems of Argentina.
In other words, inflation that exceeds 100% per year, an economy that has been stagnant for a decade, structural poverty that exceeds 40% of the population, closed international financing markets, and no domestic or international interest in investing in the country. .
In such a context, that Fernández even dreamed of achieving re-election in the primary elections in August and general elections in October was an untenable fantasy.
But he also did not want to admit it prematurely because he wanted to postpone the acute syndrome of the "range duck" as long as possible.
He was no longer possible.
The dollar climbs every day against the Argentine peso.
Or, to be exact, the peso devalues a bit more against the dollar.
This has an impact on the reserves of the Central Bank (meager for others), on the daily life of Argentines and on officials, who limit themselves to trying failed recipes -such as price controls-, or desperate solutions such as import controls, which in turn slow down or paralyze national production, which in turn generate shortages, which in turn overheat the prices of dwindling merchandise.
This combo explains why Fernández began to say goodbye to the "Rivadavia chair", as we say in these payments to the presidential chair.
But it also explains why an "outsider" of politics, Javier Milei, is growing in the polls and envisions that he can follow in the footsteps of Donald Trump.
Jair Bolsonaro or Nayib Bukele, among others.
When professional politicians do not provide solutions, the electorate can sweep them away.
After his announcement, however, Fernández faces a major challenge and a monumental question.
The challenge is how he will govern until December 10, when he must hand over the presidential baton to whoever wins at the polls, between a failing economy, the exhaustion of his management and the power vacuum.
That challenge is fed back, in turn, with an urgent question.
Will you take advantage of the next few months to make the structural and unpleasant decisions that have to be made?
In other words, will he face the “dirty work” or will he fight to hold on as best he can to reach the end of his term and let “the bomb”, as everyone alludes to the current scenario, explode whoever assumes the Presidency?
Away from the microphones, all the candidates with serious aspirations to assume the head of state pray that Fernández emulates Eduardo Duhalde when he assumed the Presidency in 2002. In other words, that he be like that other Peronist who took the reins of the country after the economic collapse and institutional of 2001 that led to the resignation of Fernando de la Rúa, he faced all kinds of turbulence and, after a thousand vicissitudes, he left an Argentina better than the one he received.
Duhalde then had, however, two decisive Economy Ministers.
The first, Jorge Remes Lenicov carried the heavy backpack of being the gravedigger of something that no longer worked.
The second, Roberto Lavagna, to face the tortuous exit from the cemetery.
Alberto Fernández, on the other hand, has a very different Minister of Economy.
His name is Sergio Massa, he is a lawyer and dreams of the Presidency.
Would Massa be willing to take the measures that could wipe out his aspirations in the short term, but also leave him or whoever takes office on December 10 in a better position to govern?
Gabriel García Márquez titled one of his novels as
El general en su laberinto
.
Alberto Fernández put himself into his own labyrinth.
And to Argentina, with him.
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