Mauricio Macri: "I am convinced that the Argentineans do not want to go back" – 21/02/2019

Mauricio Macri is sitting in the private meeting room of the Meliá Hotel, in Hanoi. He closed the "Vietnam-Argentina Business Forum" and the van that will take him to the airport is ready to leave. His wife Juliana Awada and his daughters Antonia and Valentina are waiting for him outside. The president does not seem in a hurry: after a roundup of several days of meetings, thousands of accumulated kilometers and dozens of protocol greetings, he can relax and talk about football. Boca still gives him no joy, but he lives it with humor. "Do you want to make me angry before the interview?", He jokes with a collaborator who asks him questions about the match lost by his team against Atlético Tucumán. In the end, football is far from being a problem for him right now. In Buenos Aires, several open sources of conflict are waiting for it: an inflation that does not yield, a rising dollar, a united Peronism that is banned to reject its DNU, a Supreme Court decision that hits the budget and, if that was not enough, the advanced radical partners who insist on the power to challenge. In the 25 minutes he has to spend in Clarín before returning to Argentina – with a brief stopover in Abu Dhabi – he will tackle some of these problems.

-You have avoided confirming it until now: will you finally be a candidate or can you anoint any one of your team?
-I am ready to be a candidate. I am the first to understand that the path of change that we started begins. Then, the worst thing to do is to abandon all Argentineans who really believe that there is an Argentina included in the world, with a better democratic quality and betting on solid institutions. An Argentina where you do not lie, you do not fly and where you have advanced, but you still have a lot to do.

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– Will your formula partner still be Gabriela Michetti? Or are you ready to badyze alternatives?
-It is not decided yet … We have time, four months to come and a lot of problems to solve. We must first eliminate all the consequences of last year's storms, which is why I think we need to focus on management.

– Do you think Cristina is going to be a candidate?
– Whenever I predicted something of what the ex-president was going to do, I did not succeed. So, you see, we think differently, heh. So ask another, I'm not the most appropriate to answer.

– According to you, what will be the axis of the campaign? What's going on in 2019?
We play it if we want to go back in time, isolate ourselves from the world, return to a more authoritarian system with fewer freedoms or if we truly believe in the capacity for innovation and creativity that we have in Argentina. There is clearly a development model here that is starting to take its first steps. But we must be consistent and persist.

-When he asked to be judged with poverty reduction, he said that he would have "failed" if he had not come down. The figures, it seems, will be similar, maybe a little higher. Do you think he? S also eager to set this goal?
– Higher up I do not think so, but the same yes. I confirm that it is the most important goal. We must also think that not only the number that characterizes the INDEC, but also that there is a structural poverty that nobody has been dealing with in Argentina for years. What do I want to say? Is not it less poor than today, in the neighborhood, the narco has lost control of his neighborhood and must not be restrained due to the presence of security forces? Is it not less poor who now has a paved street and rainy days can go out in the collective without being buried in the mud? The least poor who live in the 500 neighborhoods we have urbanized, with sewers and drinking water, are they not? In all these things that we have advanced, different realities are perceived. Of course, we must work to reduce inflation and generate growth so that it also decreases, but it is not the same thing.

– A few weeks ago, he made a self-criticism. He said he was optimistic when he said it would be easy to reduce inflation and stressed that he was already starting to fall. The first figures of 2019 show that it is still high. Do you still believe that you will be able to solve it in the short term?
-I will not make more predictions. But to the extent that we maintain a balanced budget, have a clear monetary policy, and continue to focus on reducing taxes so that the private sector can grow and support us in this evolution, inflation will decline. This year will be significantly lower than the previous one. We are still in the order of 3%, but we must think that we are down from the 6% we had in September and October. If we persist in this direction, we will witness a systematic decline in inflation.

– In the last days, after a calm summer, the dollar has risen again. Can there be another bullfight than last year or with the arrangements, there would be no need to worry?
– The Central Bank, which deals with monetary and exchange rate policy, is calm. Finally, the dollar is today identical to that of September. Then, it is necessary to believe that this monetary policy gives a predictability to the Argentine economy which did not have before and which is financed by the public budget. We must also understand that the electoral problem conditions the markets: when they clearly see that Argentina will continue on the path of change, the entire environment of the financial system will improve rapidly.

-For what he says, I understand that he is convinced that he will be re-elected …
-I am convinced that the Argentines do not want to go back. I am the first to know how difficult it was in 2018 and the consequences that resulted. I said it was the worst year of my life, apart from the kidnapping. But to the hesitant Argentines, I tell them that if they do not tell me their word, they must listen to what the world leaders who visited us at the G20 said and are sure we must persist.

-The radicals ask to go to the OSP and challenge the presidency. Would you like to open a trainee for the president?

-I have the impression that we are changing, beyond all forecasts, it is consolidated. Three and a half years ago everyone said we had not lasted ten minutes. There is a Cambiemos table that closed the nominations in all the provinces and I think that the armed candidacy is going very well. There are places where there are leaders who are not reconcilable and who want to be internal. And there will be. But I do not enter this part, I focus on management. And what the National Council of Change decides, it will go for me. I trust this mechanism and there it will be evacuated.

– Did you mind the order of Martin Lousteau for the internal competition to open? Anger came out of her party …
-All people in Cambiemos have the right to express themselves. Likewise, I have invited all of you to get to know the world, so that you know those countries that are very important partners of Argentina.

-The Supreme Court issued a decision forcing the state to pay 15,000 million pesos to San Luis. Are you worried about the steps taken by the Court? The departure of Ricardo Lorenzetti from the presidency seems to have ended up generating the opposite effect and not in favor of the interests of the government, as we thought …
– That's what the opposition said, which sometimes says so many things that after they do not happen anymore, you would need a file to remember. First, I say that we respect the decision, as it should be. But all that needs to be paid is not a blow to the government: it's the budget of all Argentines. And secondly, the decision concerns the mistakes and abuses committed by the previous government that we are solving.

– The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jorge Faurie, said that in the world, Argentina did not have to change lanes. What do the presidents of the main countries tell you in the "mano a mano"?

-They told all the Argentines, not only me, that it was so. And these are all people who do not have to lie to us. Why are we going to lie Xi Jinping, (Donald) Trump, (Angela) Merkel? We seek a macroeconomic balance, an intelligent opening to the world, a strengthening of institutions and a guarantee of freedom of expression. When is there a degree of freedom of expression comparable to the one we have today in Argentina? Even in the public media, which are perhaps today the most opposed, it is probably the government that runs. Well, we believe in that.

– You do not believe that there are two very different countries: one when you go abroad, where the world supports you; and another when he returns to Argentina, where he will encounter adversities and very different circumstances that complicate him?

-They both have logic. The world clearly saw that Argentina was reproducing the model of Venezuela, which was heading towards this final crisis. And now, he sees that Argentina, with difficulties, is going in the right direction. Obviously, for those who live in Argentina and have the anxiety of the day to day, you can have a look more impatient, in relation to the need of tomorrow. And I understand. But what I'm telling you is that none of these countries did it overnight. The important thing is that every day we are a little better.