Global Courant 2023-05-12 06:10:26
After two hours of hermetic meeting, Federico Angelini and Cristian Ritondo were the spokespersons for the last PRO summit, in the Palermo neighborhood. In front of dozens of journalists, they tried the foreseeable: unmoved before the press inquiries, they spoke of a “positive meeting”, of the intention to “advance in agreements” and highlighted “unity”.
Until a more specific question, about the alternative of taking one or several yellow candidates in the City to face the radical Martín Lousteau, led to a hilarious response: “It was agreed to work so that the PRO candidate wins.” It’s like Riquelme had to clarify that he works “so that Boca wins the next game.”
After both Mauricio Macri and Horacio Rodríguez Larreta publicly assured that there would be only one PRO candidate in the City, the sincerity of the spokesmen whitewashed the obvious. Today even that basic principle is not guaranteed. The former president is gambling on the candidacy of his cousin Jorge de él, a Larreta official; the head of government is betting on another minister, Fernán Quirós. And the two of them, who are coming from the opposite direction, decided to go full throttle.
Some suggested that María Eugenia Vidal be anointed as a pledge of unity. So far they have not succeeded. The PRO thus finds itself entangled with a district fight that prevents progress in other agreements. And the most dangerous thing: before a government that does not stand up and falls in the polls, it fails to capitalize on that fall. It is even suffering from its own vote drain as well. Javier Milei thanks you.
“Mauricio is blinded in this fight. The Calabrian comes out more than the engineer, I do not see that there is a turning back with Horacio. He does not conceive of losing the City. And for Pelado, if that allows him to become president, no He has problems delivering it,” a leader who worked (and worked for many years) with both of them bluntly reveals to Clarín.
“For me, Pelado is going to play Quirós with everything, to try to get him and Jorge to get off, and for María Eugenia to remain. But I see that chance far away,” analyzes another official who was at the Palermo summit.
Isn’t it excessive to risk building a coalition that can once again govern the country through a local election? Clarín asks another PRO leader who will also be on the ballot this year. “Look, managing the City allowed Macri to finance two campaigns for President. Make no mistake. It’s not just another box,” he replies and asks to quickly move on to another topic.
The debate over fiefs
Macri was also involved this week in a complex debate on “provincial fiefdoms.” Before entering the PRO meeting, and consulted about the elections the previous Sunday in Misiones, Jujuy and La Rioja, the former president spoke of “fiefdoms” and “unrepresentative elections.”
One of his main internal enemies, the radical Gerardo Morales, who had just come from celebrating a victory in Jujuy… hugging Larreta and Lousteau, immediately fell for his neck. The mischievous governor had presented Lousteau on stage as Larreta’s “future successor” in the City. For Macri and the PRO it was too much.
In any case, the former president later tried to put down that fight by clarifying that he was referring more to La Rioja, governed by Peronism since before and after the last dictatorship.
Some leaders, their own and rivals, seek to muddy Macri in the fight. And they wonder if it is not “feudal” to have endorsed the move of his cousin -still licensed mayor in Vicente López- to the City, to re-install the surname in the district.
Couldn’t the PRO in all these years generate another alternative? If Vidal returns to the Buenos Aires Executive, after his passing through the Buenos Aires Governor’s Office, wouldn’t it be the same for Juan Schiaretti from Cordoba to be the future governor of Santa Fe or San Luis?
Questions that bother
