"Come, please, join me," said the staff of Ceremonial and Protocol of the Senate. A meticulous rain fell on the Plaza de Mayo, but the 250 guests – selected with delectation by Cristina herself, who asked to be written or called one by one in the previous days – were sheltered in a giant white tent, a VIP mounted with his back to the Casa Rosada. When going up to the grandstand, the staff guided the guests to the exact place. "It's here," they marked. As if to make no one dare to change the scene, the name of each of the leaders was written and pasted on the floor. The guests had to stand on the paper. When the grandstand was finally completed, the director of the transmission made a technical test so that the plans matched exactly what they had been asked. So yes: light, camera, action.
At 15:33 p.m. on Thursday, the announcer introduced Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and she entered dressed in a sleeveless blue vest, with a white shirt, pants and sneakers and two accessories: a rosary hanging around her neck and a cockade so visible that, instantly, she noticed that many of those who accompanied her to celebrate May 25 had forgotten to wear it. The crowd cheered her and asked, with chants that she promoted by lengthening the silence, that she be the star candidate this year. There was no response.
Fifty-seven minutes later, the vice president walked to the edge of the stage, waved, blew kisses in the air, made a gesture of affection to her grandchildren – who accompanied her in the presentation as if it were a farewell – and walked away. But not quite. When the cameras could no longer take it, he summoned Axel Kicillof, Sergio Massa, Eduardo De Pedro and Máximo Kirchner to the white tent. He talked with them for about twenty minutes.
As he had done before, during the speech, he did not comment on the candidacies. The meeting, barely, was enough to make it clear that these four will be the main leaders who will accompany her in the electoral process and with whom she will try to succeed in the political and economic crisis that affects her government and that plunges the Frente de Todos in very low levels of popularity, perhaps the most dramatic since 2003. His finger, the same one that originated the traumatic experience with Alberto Fernández, will continue to be decisive for his coalition.
That same afternoon, the President, who had been punished by his mentor with not inviting him to the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the assumption of Néstor Kirchner -although he was a central actor in the early years-, landed in Mar del Plata to rest during the long weekend. An intrepid man filmed him descending the steps of the plane, accompanied by a collaborator carrying his guitar.
When Cristina was no longer in the Plaza, Wado de Pedro revealed to his companions that he had recorded his first campaign spot and that it was about to be uploaded to their networks. The interior minister asked them for help. The most enthusiastic was Kicillof, who ordered his communications team to be vigilant to retweet Wado's post as soon as it came out. "You do everything to play. Then we'll see," Cristina told De Pedro several weeks ago.
The minister accelerated. Helped by Kicillof, who made a specific request to the mayors to adjust the operation with the friendly pointers, his face began to be seen on posters pasted on walls of the Conurbano. His image appears hugging that of Cristina and the slogan is read: "Wado is coming".
"If I am a candidate for president, perfect, and if I am a candidate for governor or deputy, also perfect," he said in the last hours. In private, however, he confessed that it is not the best time to run for the highest office, because the electoral risk is great. He will do what his boss tells him and stick to her as long as he can to try to grow in knowledge, one of his weakest points. The preparation includes more speech therapy classes. When he became minister, he made it a condition not to speak in public. His wife, Elena, was the first to warn that this would not be possible. One night, the minister came home and had a stack of books on speech therapy techniques on the table.
Kicillof looks at Wado and breathes like someone who is about to lift a weight off his shoulders. Although in recent days the president told his team that he will do "what suits the space," the apparent election of De Pedro augurs his desire to go for reelection, which he believes is safer. He has already told the minister that, if he is the candidate, he will not split the election in the Province, with the intention of helping him attract votes in the largest district in the country. The mayors, who previously criticized the governor, now support him. It's not love. It is the lesser evil when it comes to going to elections. This is what Mario Ishii, Jorge Ferraresi and Alberto Descalzo believe, who have been asking Cristina not to run to Kicillof because it could harm them.
Cristina listens to conflicting opinions. Emilio Pérsico, the head of the Evita Movement, who reconciled with her very recently, saw her again on Tuesday at the Instituto Patria and made a proposal:
"The dolls are falling. You have to convince Axel to go for the presidency.
The vice responded:
"Máximo asks me the same thing, but Axel doesn't want to.
A third line of the Frente de Todos demands not to remove Massa from the field. The Minister of Economy is the one who has it most difficult because his management throws increasingly worse numbers. But he doesn't give up. He avoids talking about inflation and moves to seduce potential allies. He invited Máximo to the trip he will make today to China in search of financing, and yesterday he shared an activity with De Pedro in Mercedes. In their environment they are enthusiastic about Cristina blessing the Massa-Wado formula, in that order, ignoring that the female wing of the space will push for the vice to be a woman. In La Cámpora they affirm that Massa will head the list of senators.
Among Massa's moves in a plan to seduce Cristina, some believe they see his hand behind the request of prosecutor Guillermo Marijuan to dismiss the former president in the case known as "The K money route", the same in which Lázaro Báez was sentenced to 10 years in prison, accused of having laundered 65 million dollars of corruption. "I haven't seen it for years," Massa said Wednesday in informal conversations.
The next day, Marijuan was forced to go on Radio Mitre to explain his resolution. "I know Massa, but I haven't seen him for months," he said. Massa spoke of years without seeing each other, Marijuan of months. The minister and the prosecutor are old acquaintances. In 2015, the day the presidential formulas closed, Massa offered Marijuan the candidacy for vice president. The prosecutor went to his home in Tigre and had lunch with him. But he said no.
While in the ruling party they make offerings to their leader, in Together for Change the short circuits continue for the electoral arming. With the excuse of the polls, in which not everyone believes because they are increasingly manipulated, it is assumed that in the coming days Horacio Rodríguez Larreta will lower Fernán Quirós and free the path of Jorge Macri, as Mauricio Macri wanted. The wear and tear on the City is already inexplicable.
The fight in the province of Buenos Aires promises to be fierce. There are more and more mayors who, seeing that the possibility of going with a single candidate for governor is diluted, ask to be hung up on Diego Santilli, Larreta's candidate, and Néstor Grindetti, Patricia Bullrich's candidate. They don't want to choose. The PRO has 22 mayors and, in many important districts that it does not govern, had managed to install competitive candidates. All of them are seen as too restless and expressing their complaints against Larreta and Bullrich. "They are going to make us lose because of their whims," they say.
The complaints are even. On the one hand, they accuse Larreta of having refused to "share" Santilli with Bullrich, speculating that this would harm his own candidacy; on the other, they accuse Bullrich of "pressing" the mayors to define themselves in favor of her; If they do not, they say, the candidate threatens to plant competitors against them.
The mayor of Bahía Blanca, Héctor Gay, has just been defined by Bullrich. Santilli sees part of the power that seemed to be assured diluted and has raised his voice, even, before Larreta. This week he met with his small table and said that he will also put candidates in the municipalities where the mayors will play with Bullrich.
Julio Garro from La Plata and Guillermo Montenegro from Mar del Plata, who at the time were more inclined towards Larreta, today balance and seek to go with both presidential candidates. What if it doesn't happen? They are key districts.
Mauricio Macri got into that internal and predicted that his own bewilderment will only lift Kicillof's actions. His anger is so great that some say he is proposing to enter into some negotiations with Javier Milei in the Province. He raised it with José Luis Espert in a talk alone. Espert, who has just joined Juntos, only had criticism of Milei. Macri would have asked: "Is there anything I can do to bring them back together?"
