Conflicts of Macri with the "red circle"

The cradle that rocked Mauricio Macri was at the center of the "red circle". What was then called "establishment", Duran Barba renamed it and, at the same time, increased the number of its components. They were not only the most important businessmen and bankers of the city of Buenos Aires; they have also become economists, intellectuals and journalists. Macri does not believe this circle since he rejected a council of this, certainly false, which recommended an alliance with Sergio Mbada to face Cristina Kirchner and Daniel Scioli in 2015. In recent days, this dissent many times buried jumped again political surface. The president himself was charged with publicly raising these dissidents and asking them for a recipe to solve the problems. Political noise was installed in the first week of financial calm.

In general, the conflict with the "red circle" goes through two positions. One is the one that is pressuring the government for it to make a deeper and faster adjustment of state spending. The other pushes him to seek broad agreement with rational peronism to protect the executive against possible turbulence. The first position is inspired by some orthodox economists who blame Macri for slowness in the outcome of the adjustment. The second is a deduction of the policy according to the pre-existing parameters of the macro-policy, which nobody knows if they still exist. It's a culture and its counterculture in a permanent conflict.

The President included in his last mention the "communicators" who criticize him; that is to say to the journalists with whom it coincided for a long time. Journalists who criticize him have already incorporated them into the spectrum of his opponents. Do not be angry at these critics. The first thing that needs to be emphasized, if there is any doubt, is that journalists have the right to express their opinions on the objective facts of reality. And the president has, in turn, the right to say that he does not agree with them, as long as he does it with respectful words. Until now, some have disagreed in the normal channels of democratic discussion.

But why does the "red circle" get angry with the president who was closest to his positions, and even his aesthetics, in the last decades? The first consequences of the monetary crisis separated Capital and the suburbs from the rest of the country, which benefited more from the devaluation. It turns out, however, that in the capital the social conflict of the conurbano is strongly affected and it is also in the main metropolis of the country where almost all members of the "red circle" live and work. The spectacle observed from any telescope is then absorbed by what is happening here and now.

Nobody can reasonably argue that fiscal balance is necessary. The appearance that separates Macri from his critics refers to the rhythm more than anything else. Is it possible to adjust the public accounts with another speed? It is striking that the dissent is about the deficit because Macri is the president of recent years who has spoken the most (and speaks) of this anomaly as the fundamental problem of the Argentines. The Orthodox point out that if Macri had made a severe adjustment when he took office, he would not have had the problems that he has today. The first question is whether the president has survived this experience. The government does not think so. An administration with the most insignificant parliamentary minority of the last century, with political control of only five districts and with one-third of the population below the poverty line could not have resisted the shudder of a strong fit. The government exposes its own parchments. He has fulfilled the promise of deficit reduction over the last two years. 2018 will end with a primary deficit of 2.7, and the president promised that in 2019 there will be no deficit of more than 1.3%. This is his promise to the IMF, Nicolás Dujovne badured him that it is possible simply by continuing to administer the budget as it was done during this year; should, of course, implement some reductions in services and transfers to provinces that do not correspond to co-participation. External messages are important. Chancellor Jorge Faurie will travel to Brussels this weekend to try to conclude the agreement between Mercosur and the European Union, after 19 years of helpless negotiations. On the 18th, we will know whether or not to sign this agreement that could be interpreted as another external support to the Macri government.

The financial program, which Dujovne posted on the official website of the Ministry of Finance, indicates that the government will need credit only. $ 8,000 million, in addition to Monetary Fund loans, until December 2019. This $ 8,000 million is readily available on the local market, now that foreign investors are seduced by safer countries. The prospect of meeting the budget deficit and ensuring that the necessary resources will be available have reduced country risk. The government's biggest unfinished job is to solve the real wage, seriously affected by devaluation and inflation.

Now, why is the government resisting the signing of a grand agreement with Peronism? The first conclusion is that Peronism is as reluctant as the administration to pose in a photographic agreement. I could give the necessary votes to the government to approve the budget, especially the Peronism that responds to the governors or Diego Bossio. But no Peronist will ever want to be photographed with the news of a public accounts adjustment. This current situation has its history in a government that was always reluctant to repeat the grandiloquent gestures of agreements that, in history, have served very little, except to reform the Constitution, in 1994. Macri n & # 39; not aspire to be the same as Peronism, but his counterpart. And Peronism moves away from macrism at times when the impending political prospects of the government are complicated.

The best representative of this Peronism is Sergio Mbada, who disappeared after the defeat of Macri (and Cristina) in October. last year. Now that the president is going through a modest political period, he has reappeared with an economic plan that contains the word "subsidy" more than any other. Will you think about creating new taxes or increasing those that are already? If not, how could I give so many grants from a deficit state? Official sources have indicated that with the votes of Federal Peronism (those who respond mainly to governors) they simply need to approve the budget. They do not count on Mbada. "We will not leave them without a budget, but we will not share the political costs of adjustment," say the leaders to the national leaders who speak to them. And they talk constantly.

In the end, the dispute between Macri and the "red circle" is between the ideal and the possible, between the urgent and the important, between what can and can not to be done when a medication is administered. fragile power in a weak country. There is also some Macri discomfort, typical of any president, in front of people with power that pressure to teach how to govern. Macri is not, in this sense, different from most Argentine presidents, reluctant to councils of establishment, de facto powers or the "red circle". Call it what you want. The truth is that power is never delivered easily.