That pre-electoral scenario of 2015 in which Mauricio Macri, Ernesto Sanz and Elisa Carrió designed Cambiemos flew through the air. Together for Change was never able to establish a national strategy and define the best options for the presidency and the governorships at stake. The internal PRO, transformed into a rift between Horacio Rodríguez Larreta and Patricia Bullrich and whose consequences are still an enigma, has a full impact on the coalition's chances. And the Province, a key district, is no stranger.
Larreta maintained until the end his idea that each presidential candidate go with his candidate for governor. I did not want to share Diego Santilli, today recognized by all sectors as the best measure, with Bullrich. Without consensus at the last PRO summit in the house of María Eugenia Vidal -with the presence of Macri-, Bullrich accepted the challenge and designated Néstor Grindetti as his candidate. There was no longer any room for the unity list that was demanded by radicalism.
"There's not going to be a single list. That they play and decide for a PRO candidate or that they go with their own list," Larreta told his collaborators a month ago. The risk of this strategy is that the UCR ends up voting for Bullrich. Something that, in part, will happen.
Taking their own list to the governorship is not profitable for the white berets because they lack a gubernatorial candidate to pull in. And although formally they still have two presidential candidates such as Gerardo Morales and Facundo Manes, few bet that any of them will compete as such on August 13.
Expoagro in San Nicolas. Horacio Rodriguez Larreta and Gerardo Morales. 08.03.2023 Photo Maxi Failla - FTP CLARIN MAX03188.jpg Z
"Gerardo is very likely to be Larreta's deputy, and Manes cannot compete because he does not even have the armed in the 24 jurisdictions," admits a leader who integrated the list of the neurosurgeon in the legislative PASO of 2021. They blame Manes for having made a major mistake by not working within the party to win it over, after the election.
The Buenos Aires radicalism is split in two and may be divided in the elections, anticipating a rupture at the national level. In 2021 there was a dispute for the presidency of the UCR of Buenos Aires. Adelante Buenos Aires with Abad, Daniel Salvador and Facundo Manes, who would later head the list of deputies, won by a narrow margin, 52 to 48 to the Radical Protagonism list of Posse, and the Radical Evolution sector of Martín Lousteau and Emiliano Yacobitti. That dispute is repeated today.
With the aim of presenting a homogeneous force, which arrives strengthened at the negotiating table for when the lists are decided, the head of the provincial UCR, Maximiliano Abad – who is also running for governor – has been proclaiming the need for a single list resorting to the argument of the useful vote. Prevent that on the night of the PASO the two most voted candidates are one of Kirchnerism and another of Milei, and relegate the best of JxC to third place.
"If we do not unify in a single formula in the Province of Buenos Aires and we go with more than one candidate, we run the risk of coming out third, fourth or fifth," Abad predicted days ago.
Patricia Bullrich, surrounded by radical leaders and with Emilio Monzó.
Abad plans to insist this week with the unity list and define the next one. If he does not manage to twist the will of Larreta who refuses, he will bring together the authorities of the provincial UCR, provincial legislators, 28 mayors and 400 councilors. He will line up behind the radical candidate for president and governor. But if there is none, he will evaluate whether he accompanies someone from another party such as Larreta or Bullrich.
"The one that measures best in the province is Bullrich, so I think the party should decide to go with it," says a radical mayor of the Buenos Aires interior.
In the ruling UCR they claim to have the entire interior and, in addition to the mayors, with the majority of those who were elected councilors and who will now be candidates for mayor. They say that his territorial power means that any candidate for governor would be resolved by all the candidacies of the interior. Something that in the Posse-Lousteau sector they cannot do.
In the dissident sector they claim to have a large number of radicals in the province and point out that in case Morales does not go for the presidential election, "if Larreta and Santilli close with us, the conditions are all given for the majority of the Buenos Aires radicalism to close there with them and win the PASO in the province and the national one."
The possible decision of the UCR of Buenos Aires to lean towards Bullrich would reflect the radical rupture because it will probably clash with the president of the national UCR, Morales, if he ends up being Larreta's running mate.
The president of the UCR of Buenos Aires, Maximiliano Abad.
But the dilemma goes further. For now, the radicalism conceals a rupture throughout the country as a result of the internal PRO. In fact, Morales' ruling party is preceded by the so-called Malbec Group made up of Rodolfo Suarez, Alfredo Cornejo, Gustavo Valdes, Ernesto Sanz, Carolina Losada and Luis Naidenoff, among others, and they support Bullrich.
Not even the National Convention of Radicalism, scheduled for July 11, would settle that dispute. Because in this area alliances and perhaps some document with the suggestion of party orientation are approved, but support for a candidate - Larreta or Bullrich - or presidential formulas are not validated.
The dream of the presidential candidate of radicalism that Manes had promoted in 2021 and also Morales, seems to be diluted. The UCR does not manage to contain everyone in a homogeneous bloc and it is most likely that its actors will end up betting on Bullrich or Larreta, according to their convenience and the analysis they make of the political scenario. Perhaps the only common objective in the radicalism is, in the face of an eventual second coalition government, not to return to being the caboose but to be a voice and part in an eventual Executive Power. The name of him or the president will be anecdotal.
See also
The final tightening of Máximo Kirchner
See also