With a photo of almost the entire Buenos Aires cabinet united, although without being present himself, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta came out to bench the pre-candidacy of Fernán Quirós to succeed him at the head of the Head of Government of the city of Buenos Aires.
The "almost" is due to the logical absence of Jorge Macri, Minister of Government, who also aspires to compete for that position and who appears as the main rival of Quirós in the internal PRO, six weeks after the closing of lists. The candidacy of the former mayor of Vicente López has the endorsement of the hawks of Together for Change, such as Mauricio Macri and Patricia Bullrich.
The meeting of Buenos Aires officials took place almost parallel to the PRO summit in which Larreta, Macri and Bullrich coincided, among others. It seemed like a direct message to the former president in the national internal and also in the city discussion.
However, there are also those who read a message to Martín Lousteau, the UCR pre-candidate who will compete in the PASO of Together for Change and who maintains a strategic partnership with Rodríguez Larreta at the national level. However, the mayor of Buenos Aires has been warning for some time that he will support a leader who emerged from the PRO's own internal system.
The photo was produced in the bunker that has the larretismo in Olazábal Street, in the neighborhood of Belgrano, and was attended by the first and second lines of the Buenos Aires cabinet that Quirós integrates as Minister of Health. Although he was not in the portrait, Rodríguez Larreta was the one who propitiated it and ended up blessing it, after a meeting that took place between the officials on Thursday of last week, in San Telmo.
Fernán Quirós, leading an act in the belgrano larretista bunker.
There were more than 300 leaders of the Buenos Aires government who met to show their full support for Fernán Quirós. The meeting was headed by the Chief of Staff Felipe Miguel, who after a few words gave the microphone to Quirós, who said that "the differential value of this management lies in the quality and commitment of its teams, who work steadily to transform the City and guarantee a better quality of life for the neighbor. That is what people have chosen for so many years and it is the path we will continue to build."
In addition, he added: "All of us who are here, we are because we want Horacio to be the president of Argentina and because we want the next government of the city to surpass this, which was the best government in history."
Although Larreta was not there, he endorsed the summit that definitively marginalized Jorge Macri, whose candidacy is endorsed by his cousin, Mauricio, and Patricia Bullrich. The agreement to advance in support for the candidacy had been given last Thursday, in a conclave in which almost the entire Buenos Aires cabinet had been, with Felipe Miguel at the head.
"There is total agreement to move forward with the candidacy of Fernán, in these six weeks we are going to put hard and even to the campaign, to finish installing it, but here the only plan is him," most of the Larretista officials consulted have agreed.
Quirós and Jorge Macri were the only representatives of the PRO with expectations to be head of government, after Emmanuel Ferrario and Soledad Acuña dropped out of their pre-candidacies, at the end of March and beginning of May, respectively. There was also speculation about the possibility of a candidacy of María Eugenia Vidal, but it was ruled out by the national deputy, who last week also gave up her pre-candidacy for president of the Nation.
In Uspallata, seat of the Buenos Aires Government, they believe that there should be only one PRO candidate left in the PASO of August 13, who supports the entire party and faces Lousteau, the most competitive candidate a priori in that internal. Jorge Macri is the only one who does not agree with that strategy, which seeks to promote Quirós, because it leaves him out and he has the decision made to play "until the end, regardless of what the other candidates decide."
Jorge Macri, Minister of Government and possible candidate for mayor of Buenos Aires.
In the team of the former mayor of Vicente López they assure that in the City "there will not be a great voter who designates by finger who is going to be the candidate" and that "Jorge is going to compete in any court." They maintain that the polls show him above Quirós and Lousteau, and lean on the internal support of Patricia Bullrich and Mauricio Macri.
Close to Quirós, meanwhile, in the larretismo they think that the Minister of Health is, in a context of strong social rejection of the political class, the best alternative that the PRO can present to ensure the continuity of a project that has been 16 years between the two mandates of Macri and the two of Larreta.
"People on the street ask Fernán not to get involved in politics, he differentiates him from the rest, and that's a plus. That is why many believe that he does not have the profile to be a candidate. On the contrary, it is the best we can have, because of the support it has from its management of the pandemic and because it represents the values of the PRO", they trust.
For months Larreta has been saying that he will support the PRO candidates in the internal cambiemita. Beyond specific photos, even far from the beginning of the campaign, the head of government had not been giving signs of explicit support for Quiros and there are those who feed the hypothesis that in reality in pursuit of his presidential project the best option he has is for a radical like Lousteau to be the most voted candidate. It would be strange, because in fact he would speak of a defeat of the PRO in the PASO, beyond the very good bond that Larreta built in recent years with the economist.
Lousteau, meanwhile, continues with his tours of the City, many shared with Rodríguez Larreta himself, aware that he has no internal competition within his party and that a dispute of the PRO in the PASO can favor him so that he ends up imposing himself and competes, finally, as the candidate of Together for Change in the generals.
Horacio Rodríguez Larreta with Martín Lousteau on a campaign tour in the City.