While
Javier Milei
celebrates the first
January
financial and primary surplus in a decade,
concern is growing in some official offices about the slowness of management
and an increasingly delicate social scenario.
“The only thing you can't do is starve people,” laments a senior government official from the PRO, attentive to the growing attendance in soup kitchens of middle-class Argentines who had never set foot in one.
In the Government they regret that the President has ignored one of
Mauricio Macri's two requests
in December: that he incorporate second and third lines with experience in the Cambiemos government.
Complaints about officials who do not know the State's buttons are multiplying.
Luis Caputo's adjustment
hinders
sensitive areas of specific places such as Security and caused the Gendarmerie to not be able to use part of its fleet intended to guard the borders, a problem that the Minister of Economy promised to resolve as soon as possible.
Close to Macri, they target the Chief of Staff Nicolás Posse for
failures in management
and for having blocked the landing of former officials in the Government.
They also question the
lack of reflexes of the Ministry of Human Capital
and ask to leave until later - when inflation drops - the battle to eliminate the intermediation of social assistance.
In the Cabinet there are also complaints about the permanence of second and third line officials of Peronism and La Cámpora.
The same situation is repeated in the PAMI and ANSES delegations throughout the country.
The second suggestion from Macri that Milei ignored was the anointing of Cristian Ritondo as president of Deputies.
The chance of this option materializing in the short term fades due to the support of the head of state for Martín Menem and because it would mean opening a battle front in a hostile Congress.
The head of the PRO bench also does not believe it is advisable to lead an interblock integrated with LLA, whose members charge him with the mischief of having been the one who suggested sending the omnibus law to commission.
The steps towards the
formalization of an alliance
between the libertarian party and the yellow party, however,
are advancing towards 2025
, when both forces are integrated into an electoral front for the legislative elections.
In the PRO, they prioritize a
truce between Macri and Patricia Bullrich
to normalize the match and for the former to preside over it again.
The leaders who speak with the former president and the latest JxC presidential candidate are working to finalize a meeting between the two.
The Minister of Security is promised spaces and a virtual partnership with Macri in leading the party.
Almost no one doubts which of the parties will be the leader of the party.
Some of the leaders who listened to the former president's musings in Cumelén maintain that the link between Macri and Bullrich
was broken after the PASO
, when the candidate wanted to hide her partner.
The minister continues to question Macri's permanent winks to Milei in the campaign.
The former president believes that not even the main leaders in his space defended him as publicly as the libertarian leader.
Even so, despite the distrust, the PRO is certain that Bullrich was convinced that it is better for his influence in the Cabinet to have the support of a party behind him.
Senior officials maintain that Posse - in agreement with Aníbal Fernández -
appointed two of the four heads of the federal forces
.
The Chief of Staff also had interference in the appointments in Defense, Luis Petri's Portfolio.
The formation of a right-wing electoral front, which excites Macri, does not dispel the doubts of the political bishops of the PRO regardless of the close link between their boss and the President.
They point out the paradox that they are inexorably tied to the fate of management.
“
If things go well, Milei will capitalize on it, if things go wrong, we will also pay for it
,” they maintain.
With that perspective, former ministers close to Macri
advise
the former president against the idea of a
take-over
that includes the massive landing of PRO leaders in the Cabinet.
“
It would hurt him and the Government.
And it can have more influence from outside,” they explain.
The PRO owners analyze with concern that - despite the fact that Milei is already talking about 2025 and retweeting messages to "throw out the Congress caste next year" - he does not think about the midterm elections when making decisions.
A bad electoral result could also affect the first signs of reactivation with which the Executive is excited after a stormy year of recession.
That is why they ask for restraint from their own governors and from the allies of San Juan and San Luis.
In Macrismo there are already followers who are driving the landing of Victoria Villarruel in the province of Buenos Aires, as the first candidate in 2025 and facing the governorship in 2027;
another way to resolve the noises in the LLA presidential formula.
The idea generates misgivings among the Buenos Aires PRO representatives.
The Macrista leaders who have no pretensions to occupy positions - but people they trust in key positions in the administration - allow themselves to be more optimistic.
They are surprised by the stoicism with which the middle class supports an
unprecedented adjustment
and are excited about a
downward and uninterrupted inflation and a unified exchange market
that the Government can show next year.
For those who hold positions in the Government, the path looks more tortuous and uncertain, even with the dollarization "one step away", of which the President speaks.
"It's like
locking a heroin addict in the bathroom
for life," reflects an official who frequently visits La Rosada and values the President's "almost mystical conviction."