Depending on which side of the
broad PRO rift
you consult with, Mauricio Macri's decision to assume the presidency of the party is due to different nuances.
There are those who see it as
a whim of the former president
and almost a
challenge to the figure of the current Head of State, Javier Milei
.
Patricia Bullrich, still head of the PRO but a high-ranking official within the Government, is the one who adheres to that line of thought, in the middle of a dialectical confrontation with Macri that comes from the frustration that being the third force meant for Together for Change. national and be left out of the last runoff.
The other key reference of the party during the 2023 election,
Horacio Rodríguez Larreta,
has such conflicting and publicly exposed ideas with the former president that he directly warns that he is going to
stand in the opposite direction
to any
attempt to hand over the PRO to Milei
.
He does not personify it in Macri, but for the former head of the Buenos Aires Government that Macri assumes the presidency of the party represents that: taking to extreme positions what he understands as a center party, which set as its central objective since its creation to improve the functioning of the party. State, a figure that Milei intends to eliminate.
María Eugenia
Vidal is not someone else within the PRO structure
.
Until early 2019, she was the second most important figure in the party behind Macri, with presidential aspirations for that period or later.
What came is known: a resounding defeat that year of the then president against Kirchnerism, which dragged the Buenos Aires governor to a resounding fall in the Province, to the point that two years later Vidal had to reconvert into a Buenos Aires leader and become part of from a long line of leaders from Macri's past who, beyond maintaining an emotional bond with Macri,
balance according to the convenience or not of playing near him
.
These three cases may be
the ones that best reflect the Macri effect within the party
that he himself created and that has been going through
a crisis since the middle of last year that even threatens its future survival
.
With the
chance of a merger with Libertad Avanza
weakened in the terms proposed by Bullrich, Macri is committed to strengthening the PRO at the national level, turning it into a more federal party, with weight in the provinces through young leaders, and aware that What is coming will have the illustrious surnames, if they want, more in the role of companions and advisors than as protagonists.
Former president Mauricio Macri, at Expoagro.
Photo: Juan José García.
Why then does Macri, at 65 years old and after more than two decades in national politics, return to lead the party and not promote another leader with a refreshing air?
Largely because he has felt for a long time that none of those who were poised to succeed him as the main reference of the PRO managed to take the scepter from him, because internally he interprets that he is the only one who can transmit the experience of having presided over a country, with everything that That entails, and because
it also creates an extra challenge
: from the side, collaborating with a government that he believes chose the right path to get out of a critical economic situation.
And he knows that
if he fails, the splinters of that explosion will also hit him
for having practically been Milei's godfather, before, during and now.
The formality will take place on Tuesday, when the
only list that will be presented to assume the presidency of the PRO will be headed by Macri,
with the endorsement of almost all sectors of the party, in a distribution of institutional positions in which everyone will seek to secure important seats. .
Not only the presidency of the party and the Assembly is at stake, but also two vice-presidencies, 25 councilors, members and the general secretary.
Patricia Bullrich, above all, aspires to retain places there, around half of the positions, to maintain her internal firepower.
In 2024, one of the big decisions that the PRO must adopt as a party is what position it must adopt regarding the measures of the Executive and especially the legislative projects of a minority Government, which needs the support of the bloc of 37 deputies headed by Cristian Ritondo.
But 2025 is also looming on the horizon, with the mid-term elections and the concrete possibility that
in that context candidates will join forces with the libertarians
.
The support of the governors will be central to Mauricio's presidential management in the party.
Jorge Macri
, head of the Buenos Aires government and his cousin, moves aligned with the former president and is the one who cultivates the best dialogue with milleism, beyond being in full demand for the return of co-participation funds that have been owed to him since Kirchnerist times.
Ignacio Torres
, the Chubut native who openly confronted Milei over the withdrawal of resources from his province, also supports Macri in his decision to preside over the party.
And although with less effusiveness from the internal party,
Rogelio Frigerio
from Entre Ríos is another who gave him his support.
Beyond his position at FIFA, which requires a lot of time traveling, Macri will take on his first management challenge in the PRO in more than four years, since he left the Presidency of the Nation.
He will formally lead
a very different party than the one he thought of and created twenty years ago
, in a completely different context and with many of the cadres that he helped build, facing him or with their own aspirations within politics and that transcend the dynamic of the yellow party.