All to the Plaza: Alberto, Larreta, Cristina
The sun of the 25th gives for everything. The short week will have its climax on Thursday in the Plaza de Mayo. Alberto Fernández, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta and Cristina de Kirchner (and companions, of course) will be exhibited. As if they had no other place to exhibit, Alberto and Larreta will share kneelers in the national Tedeum. They will be seen together for the first time since those Covid plague councils.
When they leave the cathedral, the square will already be populated for the Christian act for the 20th anniversary of Nestor's inauguration, even after losing the presidential elections with Carlos Menem in the last primary (they were not called PASO in 2003) that the tribes of Peronism fought. "Las campanas/Mezclan sus alborotos/Al de las dianas", says the patriotic cat "El sol de 25" by Gaucho Ledesma (pseudonym of the lyricist Domingo Lombardi, who signs the piece with Gardel and Razzano, although the music is by Santiago Rocca).
So that they do not mix or get infected, the national government and the CABA spoke for the first time in a year. The Tedeum is at 11 o'clock, and was negotiated by Julio Vitobello and Guillermo Oliveri (Secretary of Worship) with Larreta officials. They thought about making it earlier, type 9, but Larreta said he goes at the time they want. The Tedeum is a celebration that the government asks of the Church.
Only at noon, they gave up the Rosada, the square will be opened for the bars that will listen to Cristina to enter, who will fall at nap time. It is a holiday and not many people are expected either. No one believes that Cristina, in use of her dignity as vice president, participates in the tedeum. It is not known who he loves less, if Alberto or Larreta. It is not for her that scenario, although piety suits her.
The same 25, but in Brasilia, there will be a celebration of the homeland date. 850 guests of Daniel Scioli go to the embassy and some will say that it is a candidacy launch. He will talk about how he has managed to fulfill three commitments signed by Alberto and Lula on March 30. Among them, enabling Brazilian financing to Techint to build the Vaca Muerta gas pipeline and legal authorization for Brazil to finance foreign trade with Argentina."
Macri in operations
On Thursday 25 Mauricio Macri goes to Cumelén to celebrate the national date and other achievements. First, it is a winning cabal. It is now known that his presence in the match between Manchester City and Real Madrid was for a call as a fetish of good fortune of the president of the English team Khaldoon Al Mubarak.
Mauricio was in London to give a talk and Mubarak found out. He called to tell him that they need him in that game because Boca Juniors had won a Cup final against Real Madrid and that feat brought luck. The businessman and minister of the Emirates had him next to him and they celebrated the 4-0, with photo included.
Macri's other friend, Florentino Pérez, president of Madrid, will be in charge of fearing that disloyalty. Florentino was in the match of misfortune and often repeats that he has never been able to overcome the defeat against Boca in Japan in 2003. Nor does he forget that result Macri, who will be this Monday night at the campaign dinner of Andrés Ibarra for the board of Boca in whose list of candidates Macri will have some position.
The PRO expects surveys
Macri returned to the country last Friday and held meetings in one of his bunkers, the fifth of former minister Jorge Triaca. He celebrated Patricia Bullrich's decision to summon Nestor Grindetti to be a pre-candidate for governor. He already had a candidate for head of government, cousin Jorge. Macrismo exalts Mauricio's decision for Grindetti because he is a personally faithful man and sees him as a candidate for governor. They also consider him the strongest of the candidates for being from the Third Electoral Section, where he won in 2019 and 2021.
The decision opened wounds. He and Patricia owe an explanation to Cristian Ritondo, whom the candidate had told she would move for him. The election of Grindetti – a businessman thrown out as an official, but without his own political construction – is vicarious of the movements of María Eugenia Vidal, who proposed herself as a unity candidate between Macri and Larreta in the CABA. That role meant detaching himself from Jorge Macri and also from Bullrich. In the round fell Ritondo, who this week will talk about his possible role in the lists with Larreta. He must renew as a deputy and in Buenos Aires he is elected national senator. There is something for everyone, they tell him, but so far the audacity of Mauricio prevails, who plays from the outside without risking his skin.
All eyes of the PRO are on a meeting between Macri and Larreta in the week when the results of the 3 polls commissioned to decide candidate in CABA will be known. The photo of Fernán Quirós with Elisa Carrió contributes to this result. Legends aside, politicians believe polls more than their own vision. That's how it goes.
The Last Tedeum
For many, the Tedeum of the 25th is a liminal moment. It will be the last tedeum of Alberto, who will not miss them – he is not a man of religious density – and the last of Mario Poli, whom the Vatican will replace in the coming days. He resigned on November 24, on his 75th birthday. The new archbishop of Buenos Aires will be responsible for organizing Pope Francis' visit. The announcement of the new archbishop is imminent. Not the trip because they believe that Pope Bergoglio will want to know, before confirming it, who will be president from December.
The news leaking Rome is that the Pope will be in the country after the summer (or boreal winter), probably after Easter. Next year it will fall between March 28 and 31. The signs say that it will pass through southern Brazil -perhaps Aparecida-, Uruguay and Argentina. The president of the episcopal conference, Oscar Ojea, knows this, who was this weekend at the annual assembly of CELMA (Latin American and Caribbean Episcopal Council) that was held in Costa Rica. The archbishop of Porto Alegre, Jaime Splenger, was elected as new president.
The plan of the visit, designed for previous trips that were not made, will bypass the Federal Capital as much as possible. They foresee ceremonies in the south (Neuquén), some city of the suburbs (La Matanza), and the north (Salta or Tucumán).
Francis, why now
In previous murmurings the reasons for the trip and why he did not come to the country earlier have been discussed. One estimated factor is the age and health of the pontiff, who has overcome crises but feels older and owes a debt to the country. Before he did not come because the local political process made him fear that it would be a pledge of discussion and debate, in a country where the Church does not have problems as in other parts of the world.
If any burden needed to be rebalanced, Francis took care to remember that his relations with Kirchnerist Peronism were never the best. He recalled this in the dialogue with priests from Hungary on the trip to that country a month ago. Bergoglio revealed there that one of the judges who questioned him in the trial for one of the ESMA cases, told him that he had the order to convict him. That statement was made in 2011, when Cristina de Kirchner was president. Francis saw to it that this information was reproduced urbi et orbi, through the magazine La Civiltà Cattolica, which is managed by his informal spokesman, the priest Antonio Spadaro.
Neither Kirchnerist nor Christianist
La Civiltà is like the BBC of the Vatican and the message was to remind conservative sectors of the Creole parishioners that he is not Kirchnerist or Christian. History proves that his affinities are with Peronism – like the Argentine Church – but that: 1) Kirchner considered him the head of the opposition to his government; 2) that Bergoglio has had the best friends in politics in opposition to Peronism. He fought with Aníbal Ibarra for the exhibition of León Ferrari in the Recoleta and actively supported the candidacy of Jorge Telerman in 2007 for head of government of the city; 3) with Macri president made agreements with the State that are still in force, such as the emergency laws of the popular economy (2016) and the laws of villas (2018 and 2022). These statements were made by Bergoglio when he had already announced that he would come next year to Argentina (report with Joaquín Morales Solá).
In the Vatican's view, the arrival of a new government since December dispels the threat that its presence could cause divisions. In any scenario, he sees that an agenda of understanding can be reached between the political forces that has no return. The candidates in view of Together for Change and Frente de Todos understand this need.
Although there will be a new government cast, Bergoglio has communication ties with the dome of the current government through Juan Manuel Olmos, deputy chief of staff, and Guillermo Oliveri, eternal secretary of Worship – he held that position between 2033 and 2015 and renewed in 2019 – always with the agreement of the Vatican. Oliveri will receive in the coming days the name of the new archbishop who will replace Poli. The murmurings have already been unleashed – that's what the Jesuits call lobbying prior to an institutional decision.
Candidate Arbitration
The man closest to Bergoglio in the Argentine Church is Monsignor Victor Fernandez, archbishop of La Plata. Experts believe that it will be more useful for him to remain in that seat, which was for a long time the capital of anti-Bergoglylism, when Monsignor Héctor Aguer was headlined. If he remains there, he may be made a cardinal. There are those who also believe that "Tucho" can be useful to Bergoglio in a position in the Vatican.
Fernández has good relations with Governor Axel Kicillof, candidate for re-election in the province or, in any case, for president. Kicillof would never do anything, in any function, that irritated "Tucho". That goes a long way for the Church, an institution in which archbishops are like governors of their district. They are chiefs with territorial responsibilities.
Peronism already lived the experience of that power and those relations in 2015, when the episcopate lowered its finger to the candidacy for governor of Aníbal Fernández. As Cristina's minister, he had enabled the debate on greater decriminalization of the use of substances, which the Church condemns as a punishment for the poor. Aníbal lost the elections to María Eugenia Vidal, and that defeat dragged Peronism to national defeat against Cambiemos.
With Daniel Scioli, another Peronist pre-candidate has the best relations. This is what the ambassador will have commented with Oscar Ojea, with whom he had lunch in Brasilia a month ago. But that's not talked about. Wado de Pedro received attentions from Bergoglio and received him alone in the Vatican: special treatment. Sergio Massa Bergoglio does not want him close, although he is the most agreeable in Peronism. Beyond the mischief he tried against him when he was Cristina's chief of staff – who has forgiven them, that's why he is a priest – he has warnings about the capacity for inconsistent pirouettes that Sergio registers in his short biography.
On the side of Cambiemos, any candidate who wins suits him. He is only afraid of the inorganics of politics. "I am afraid of saviors without history. I say it for everyone. When a savior comes with no history, be suspicious," he told C5N last March.
There may be surprises
In the short list of candidates to replace Poli appears a Dominican who is in charge of the diocese of Bahía Blanca, Carlos Azpiroz Costa. If it is a shortlist, then put it to Gustavo Carrara, auxiliary of Poli and vicar for pastoral care in Emergency Villas.
When he was elected pope, Bergoglio was Gabriela Michetti's confessor and appointed Carrara to replace him in that task, when he took over in Rome. But with Bergoglio you never know, because the Holy Spirit, to whom the Church refers these decisions, is very inspiring when it comes to surprises. In Cordoba, when everyone was talking about shortlists for a new archbishop, Francis uncovered a Jesuit, Angel Rossi, who did not appear in anyone's papers.
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