Who is Cecilia Nicolini, the presidential adviser who has soared with vaccines and who has more power than many ministers

“You will see me running in the Casa Rosada”, answers Cecilia Nicolini when asked when and how to find her.

And that’s how it is: the political scientist who rose through the ranks until she was in charge of negotiations and vaccine research – with Minister Carla Vizzotti-, was the protagonist of trips to Russia and Cuba in obtaining doses against COVID as during multiple meetings, always very close to Alberto Ángel Fernández.

Nicolini defines herself in the networks as “Argentina, Madrid, Latin American and feminist. She graduated from UCA (Argentine Catholic University), studied at Harvard, where she did a Masters in Public Administration at Harvard and did research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT After a stint in Boston, he emigrated to Madrid, from where maintained a relationship with Marco Antonio Enríquez-Ominami Gumucio, (Known by his initials MEO), a Chilean politician who founded the Puebla Group and who established a friendly bond with Alberto Fernández. This is where the bond between the presidential candidate of the Frente de Todos and the young Nicolini was born.

“I want you to be my advisor,” Alberto told her when the FdT won the elections in 2019. and in the midst of the celebrations in the Peronist bunker of Chacarita, in which Nicolini participated. There he returns to Madrid to pack his bags and settle in the Casa Rosada, being part of the table of presidential advisers, a team led by Juan Manuel Olmos from Buenos Aires and in which Alejandro Grimson, Ricardo Forster and Julián also participate. Leunda.

Based in Balcarce 50, the restless political scientist began to build networks. Generated an oiled bond with Vilma Ibarra, Alberto’s legal hand in management and together they created the collective #MujeresGobernando which supports the actions of members of the national government, in which Cecilia Todesca and Elizabeth Gómez Alcorta stand out.

When was there Nicolini moved his centerpiece: he built a solid relationship with Carla Vizzotti, at the time, second to Ginés González García at the Ministry of Health. From there, and until the moment when Vizzotti moved to the ministerial level, Nicolini, with the infectious disease doctor, took care of the negotiation and research of vaccines. The “Russia Chapter” being the key element. Both have visited Moscow several times and the Harvard graduate He won positions for his fluency in English, which is not abundant in the Alberta cast.

Then came the trip to Mexico and Cuba, where the two women struggled to speed up the arrival of doses of AztraZeneca (in the first country) and flattered the Abdala and Soberana vaccines in Havana. There they had their most political moment, visiting the cultural center of María Santucho, niece of the political leader of the ERP (Revolutionary People’s Army, Mario Roberto Santucho.

Today Nicolini continues to add influence in the surroundings of Alberto Fernández, which generated the rejection of several and several officials, seeing his power grow. This is what happened after the lunch between Spanish President Pedro Sánchez and the Argentine Head of State. “Cecilia didn’t stop talking for a second,” said one of those present at the rally, which included foreign ministers and ambassadors from both countries.

The privileged relationship he built with Carla Vizzotti, since the official went through a difficult period with the crisis of the “VIP vaccination” and the subsequent departure of Ginés, generated resentment within the Ministry of Health itself. . “A whole life devoted to sanitation”, a quarrel that does not look favorably on the place that the advisor has forged for himself All Terrain.

“It is a generator of meetings”, is defined by a member of the Casa Rosada, who knows his arrival to the Chief of Staff, Santiago Andrés Cafiero, and to the Secretary for Strategic Affairs, Gustavo Beliz, another of those who have access to the presidential trust.

Nicolini is already a voice of defense for the government in the media. And in recent days, he said that “by the end of the year we will receive the more than 22 million AztraZeneca”. This does not complicate him in his many actions which range from meetings of the Economic and Social Council as well as the “Country Brand”, the Dubai Expo or the gender issues of the Frente de Todos administration.

All of this is crowned with this Cecilia Nicolini also has the support of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner: The vice-president congratulated her, after traveling to the Russian Federation in search of more Sputnik V. And her collaboration so that the Argentinian businessman Marcelo Figueiras, head of the Richmond laboratory, to produce the vaccine Russian in its factory in Pilar.