Four years after starting the road to the Casa Rosada promoted by the finger of Cristina Kirchner, President Alberto Fernández resigned this Friday to seek re-election. Thus, Peronism must now decide between defining its candidate for the presidency in a primary election or once again aiming for a direct nomination.
“On December 10, I will hand over the presidential sash to whoever has been elected at the polls by popular vote,” said the president in a video of more than seven minutes in which he glossed over his supposed successes in almost four years of government.
“It is clear that we did not achieve everything we set out to do. Families in poverty hurt us, low income hurts us, projects and dreams that could not materialize hurt us. But despite so many difficulties, I have one certainty: no I took a single measure against our people,” argued Fernández, cornered by inflation that far exceeds one hundred percent per year and strong devaluation pressures on the peso.
The possibility of Vice President Fernández de Kirchner running for a third term in the Casa Rosada seems remote. The former head of state insists she will not run for office, despite pressure from her closest circle to at least seek a senatorial seat.
Fernández caressed for months the idea of ??betting on re-election, a company in which he had almost no support within Peronism. The polls have also been pointing out, for months, a sharp drop in the intention to vote for the party founded by Juan Perón, which could even come third in the October elections, surpassed by the opposition of Together for Change and the libertarian Javier Milei .
Peronism, the most efficient electoral machine in recent decades in Argentina, is atomized and without a clear direction: Sergio Massa, the Economy Minister who faces the threat of a total social and financial collapse, continues to dream of being the presidential candidate . Paradoxes of Argentine politics, Massa embodies the right wing of Peronism, but has the support of the vice president, who embodies a kind of left wing.
The Argentine media point out that during a meeting on Thursday at the Olivos presidential estate, Massa pressured Fernández without subtleties to get him to drop the presidential candidacy. The finance minister, who moves today as if he were a prime minister, believes that the head of state is a disruptor to the crazy local economy.
Fernández is betting on Daniel Scioli, former governor of the province of Buenos Aires and defeated in the 2015 presidential elections by Mauricio Macri, although the question is whether, now that he is an official lame duck, he will have the power to impose some kind of course.
Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, mayor of Buenos Aires and presidential candidate for the opposition, was clear in his reaction to Fernández’s announcement: “It is one more example of the failure of this government, of all Kirchnerism and of Cristina Kirchner. Worse than we are we can’t be.”
Vice President Fernández de Kirchner did not make herself felt, although no one doubts her relief at the decision the president was forced to make: her contempt for Fernández, with whom she does not speak and whom she adorns with a large catalog of insults in private conversations, is by now legendary.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
