"We lived in anguish throughout the electoral process during all this time, we voted three times, we went to the second round, we suffered the possible continuity of Kirchnerism, but in the end those who came third end up governing," is one of the many messages that are replicated on social networks, brain storming of public opinion that debuted as such and with a high impact on this year's elections. The phrase alludes, without curves, to the person behind President-elect Javier Milei: Mauricio Macri.
Indeed, the extinct Together for Change did not enter the second round, but its presidential candidate, Patricia Bullrich, will be the next security minister of the new government. And Macri is behind the assembly of the cabinet. Will Milei have to prove that it is his government and not that of the former president, or is it actually a society that strengthens him?
There are certain struggles that the libertarian has been proposing, but no one is sure that they will come to fruition. One of them, starting with his future Minister of the Interior, Guillermo Francos, is to bring Florencio Randazzo as president of the Chamber of Deputies. Paradoxically, the ups and downs of politics make Macri and Cristina Kirchner agree that they do not want him in that position.
Macri aspires for Cristian Ritondo to manage the Lower House and drag the largest number of PRO deputies. Perhaps also a handful of radicals, but the former president is not interested in the UCR or the legislators of the Civic Coalition, who would remain on the opposite sidewalk with the deputies who answer to Horacio Rodríguez Larreta and María Eugenia Vidal.
Macri is nesting in his heart a revenge. In the first place, the course of Alberto Fernández's government partly vindicated his administration. But he still has to correct the reforms that he did not make and that led to the rejection of his re-election and the return of Cristina to power. He has long observed that this task could only be fulfilled by Milei, which is why he does not dramatize the debacle of Together for Change and privileges the possibilities of the elected government. Milei's failure would also be his.
Mauricio Macri. Behind the arming of the Milei government.
Cristina, on the other hand, wants to take revenge for so many of Randazzo's dissidents, such as the one that led her in the legislative elections in 2017 to be defeated by Esteban Bullrich because the leader of Chivilcoy put together a Peronist proposal from the outside; or, even further, when in 2015 he refused to run as a gubernatorial candidate because he wanted a presidential election against Daniel Scioli. There is no statute of limitations for revenge. Those lack of support could diminish Randazzo's chances.
In his first week in office, Milei has experienced change. It left Victoria Villarruel without the management of the areas of Security and Defense; Carolina Píparo de Anses was brought down; marginalized Emilio Ocampo from the Central Bank; he let Carlos Rodriguez go. And he appointed two officials of Juan Schiaretti as Osvaldo Giordano in Anses, and Franco Moguetta in Transport. What made you change?
The Economic Plan
"The real economy minister is going to be Milei. That's why he needed an operator to get him dollars and he appointed Luis Caputo; and someone who would design a spending cut, and that's where Federico Sturzenegger comes in with the modernization of the State," summarized a businessman on Friday at the Alvear Hotel, on the occasion of the end-of-year lunch of the Swiss-Argentine Chamber of Commerce.
"What Milei needs to do is go to the IMF and tell them, I don't need anything; but when I carry out the plan that I am going to apply, then I do need you to help me," economist Ricardo Arriazu summarized before about 500 diners. On Monday, the president-elect will be in Washington to meet with IMF and State Department officials.
It is difficult to know how he will carry out an adjustment of 15 points of GDP, as he announced. According to Arriazu, the discretionary items that the government sends to the provinces outside of the co-participation – the ATNs – are equivalent to 0.7% of GDP; and the same means the items destined for public companies such as airlines, trains, etc. Approximately 1.4% of GDP between the two. And the rest?
Alberto's Escape Plan
Alberto Fernández, who will finish his term in two weeks, could be remembered in several ways. "The worst president in the last 40 years"; "the president who had less power than his vice president"; "the president of 1,000% inflation"; "The president without a political legacy."
The reflection of these qualifiers is not alien to Fernández himself, who probably after handing over the presidential sash to Milei, will run to Ezeiza to fly to Spain and settle there, capitalizing on the personal bond he sowed with Spanish President Pedro Sánchez. For their own benefit, not that of the Argentines.
Spain. The destination chosen by Alberto Fernández. Photo: Luciano Thieberger
"I have some proposals in Spain to go and teach," he said a few days ago in an interview with Spain's El País. It would be interesting to elucidate who might be interested in the classes of a president who, in addition to bordering on 1,000% inflation in his four years in office; tripled social plans to bring them to 43.40 million; brought poverty to <>%; incurred a huge weight emission; deepened the exchange rate clamp; it managed to ensure that <>% of workers are precarious and without contributions because they are in the black; or that a segment of the workers in white are poor.
Like Cristina Kirchner, the vice president who enthroned him in office, Fernández now carries on his shoulders the social condemnation of not being able to move freely through the streets of the country he governs, or go to a restaurant like the rest of mortals or enjoy a play in a theater.
Perhaps the outgoing president believes that he will go unnoticed on the streets of Madrid. Difficult, because it is a country to which 328 thousand Argentines have emigrated during his government, a figure that has increased by 83% compared to 2022.
The country has been paralyzed for more than a year in the quagmire of a never-ending election campaign; The integration of the lists of pre-candidates, alliances of convenience and internal disputes with levels of unthinkable aggression were suffered.
The electorate suffered from trolls, practices of pure clientelism, demagogic, negative and dirty campaigns. There were four presidential debates and two vice-presidential debates in the media. There was PASO, general election and runoff. A wasted time that will be lost again in a year, when the logic of politics begins to speculate on the electoral campaign for the midterm elections. Is it necessary? Or has the time come to avoid elections every two years, rethink primaries and definitively finish separating provincial and national elections?
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Trembling and intrigue around Milei: Reidel gets off, carves Werthein, Scioli goes up
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