The day after Mauricio Macri relativized the results of the elections in La Rioja, Misiones and Jujuy as "unrepresentative provinces because they have been managed for many years by feudal systems," the governor of Jujuy, the radical Gerardo Morales, came out to respond to his ally of Together for Change.
"Jujuy is not feudal," Morales clarified in an act he led in Salta, where he went to support JxC candidate Miguel Nanni for next Sunday's elections. And about Macri, he gave him a warning: "He will surely retract when he realizes what he said; otherwise, it will be a grievance."
Later, in a dialogue with Clarín, he insisted on the request for an apology from the former president. "Mauricio will have been wrong, he will have to apologize publicly," he said, adding: "If he said it on purpose, it is not the attitude we need in Together for Change."
Morales considered that "as the important reference of the coalition that it is, the best contribution it can make is to apologize." And he said he did it, "in a reserved manner," through Riojan Senator Julio Martinez. But he considered that "misunderstandings or public offenses are clarified publicly, not like this."
From the environment of the former president of the Nation, however, they had already sought to lower the tone of Macri's statements, before Morales mentioned the issue.
"Mauricio clearly referred to La Rioja and in no way to Jujuy, a province to which he already stood out as President. He visited her then and even helped make the airport, during his term," said people close to Macri.
The Macri-Lousteau fight
In the offices of the former president they believe that this is due to "some intention of Senator Martin Lousteau to generate some internal political discussion, Mauricio in no way referred to the province of Jujuy as a feudal territory."
The accusation against Lousteau has to do with statements that the economist had made in an interview in TN, on Monday night. "Macri should not contribute to injuring Together for Change," said Lousteau, a senator of the radicalism and partner of Gerardo Morales and Horacio Rodríguez Larreta in the national armed group led by the three, in the internal leg of JxC.
"While in the PRO they are trying to calm the spirits, it seems to me a bad statement towards the interior of Together for Change. It is harmful to what happens in Jujuy," Lousteau added.
From the Macrismo believe that the radical senator tried to abound in the internal PRO starring Rodriguez Larreta and Macri, who on Monday afternoon coincided in a meeting of the PRO in Palermo. Precisely before entering there was that the former president left those statements about the "feudal" provinces, in which he equaled in one point Jujuy with Misiones and La Rioja, the three provinces where there were ample victories of the ruling party in Sunday's elections.
Morales' reform
In neighboring Salta on Tuesday, Morales also gave details of how he will implement a reform in the constitution of Jujuy, which limits the two terms for all positions that are discussed in the elections.
"I am reforming the Constitution, I could have reformed it to re-elect me but we have much more attachment to constitutionality than other partners that are part of the coalition," Morales said, in dialogue with this newspaper.
He himself will complete eight years as governor in December, when he will leave his post to Carlos Sadir, his finance minister and recently elected in the elections with almost 50% of the votes and almost 30 points away from the second, the Peronist Rubén Rivarola. The victory reinforced Morales' aspirations to compete as a pre-candidate for president in the JxC PASO.
It is not the first time that Morales and Macri maintain a dialectical crossing. In June of last year, the governor of Jujuy had gone out to cross the former president for his statements about the presidency of Hipólito Yrigoyen, which he had compared to "populist governments."
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