Máximo Kirchner’s operations and a shower of orders for Alberto Fernández to react

Martín Guzmán checked WhatsApp and was speechless, his eyes fixed on the cell phone screen. The message read like this, verbatim, with sentences separated by hyphens and words in all caps:

─ Federico Basualdo’s resignation request never existed.

─ Press operations are not helping to drive sector policy at such a delicate time for the country.

─Basualdo has NEVER increased the rate freeze. Public hearings clearly mark the way: taking care of people’s pockets and giving predictability to the sector.

─Basualdo argues that in the context of the pandemic, the increase could never REACH double digits. This is based on the difficult situation that Argentina is going through, and in particular the province of Buenos Aires.

The message, a little longer in fact, was written by members of La Cámpora, which is the same as Máximo Kirchner. The text was addressed to a group of journalists, who had been clarified that it was information “And outThat is to say – according to the textbooks – it was authorized to be published subject to the source. But the maneuver was so reckless – or perhaps the reverse, so deliberate – that seconds later, someone passed the message on to Guzmán’s phone.

The Minister of the Economy then understood the magnitude of the coming storm. Of course, his energy secretary had already asked Basualdo, the electrical energy undersecretary, to resign. La Cámpora denied the information and attributed the operation to Guzmán because several news portals had published the departure of the official. The operation, for those who like to cling to the facts chronologically, was the reverse: Máximo interceded for cancel a measure agreed by the Minister of the Economy before with Alberto Fernández.

There is no unanimity on whether Alberto believed that a camper could be detached without Cristina’s consent or if there was something darker, as some Cabinet actors argue: that she accepted the decision when it was communicated to her, and for some reason regretted it or saw something she didn’t like. What Vice knew, with an untimely sentence, was his discomfort with the treatment of information and the flight to journalists.

Two days before the scandal, Guzmán had spoken with Fernández to tell him that he wanted to fire Basualdo. His work did not go as planned. The minister wanted a 15% increase. 100 of the electricity tariff, in two parts. It was, from the start, a concession, because until a few months ago it was supposed to be in step with inflation, at least the projected one, of 29%. Alberto spoke to Santiago Cafiero about the matter. The Chief of Staff then chatted with Guzmán. And Guzmán, the paved road, asked Darío Martínez, the Secretary of Energy, to inform Basualdo of the exit. It was just a procedure.

The story has an end. Basualdo did not and will not go. It would even be more appropriate to say that he received some sort of promotion, judging by the way they treat him and the jokes they make his closest companions. Amid the crossings – which included sending screenshots with messages and television footage – the official privately received a supportive cataract, starting with La Cámpora referrals.

Axel Kicillof, who is not part of this sector, also gave him a hug from a distance. When a reporter fired him in a radio interview they delved into the pandemic, Kicillof asked not to be taken off the air to clarify Basualdo’s effectiveness. No one had asked or suggested it. It must be unprecedented for a governor to immerse himself in an intern to defend a third-line national official.

As the days went by, Casa Rosada started adjusting the story and saying that Basualdo would eventually leave, but not now. “Not now, not later”, They challenge in La Cámpora. Basualdo himself bragged about his situation inside. Better to ask questions about Guzmán’s future. He will leave? No one can assure it, nor deny it. He does not want to go this route. He’s a stubborn man. Yes, on the other hand, we know that Cristina and Máximo they don’t want it, they don’t tolerate it and they no longer respect it.

The minister will be exposed to all the decisions that he makes or, worse, that he cannot make. There are those who say that Fernández put him on the plane that left for Europe yesterday to make him aware of the political dynamics of the official front. Negotiations with the IMF will therefore enter a larger cone of shadows than the one that already exists. For Cristina, Guzmán has ceased to be Minister of the Economy. It is examined by the Minister of the Fund.

The Instituto Patria, through Oscar Parrilli in the Senate, marked the ground. The $ 4.3 billion the agency is giving Argentina as part of helping individual countries to fight the effects of the pandemic cannot and should not be used to pay off debt, as desired. The Minister. The campsite goes for more: it wants Alberto and Guzmán to replace the Emergency Family Income (IFE), aid for around 9 million people that was implemented in 2020.

It was Daniel Arroyo, the Minister of Social Development, to put his face: “The IFE had to do with a time in April, May and June of last year, when all activity was closed and poverty was 47 %, and now is not the time for this situation, ”he said. Another tour with La Cámpora. For Andrés Larroque, symbol of the camper and minister of Kicillof, a new IFE is essential.

The Frente de Todos has mounted an impressive and urgent operation in an attempt to shut down internal operations. Never forget that in a few months there will be elections. This summit in Ensenada made the camper nod his head. “The work was already done. The signal that we are not reaching anyone was clear to everyone, ”they said in the group led by Máximo. Meanwhile, Alberto said, “Take this photo, it’s the unit photo.” He wasn’t telling the whole truth. A novelty appears in the final decision-making of the ruling party. Until today, Cristina was Alberto’s last barrier. It could become, directly, La Cámpora.

A veteran of a thousand battles like Armando Cavalieri – who was a Menemista, a Duhaldista, a Kirchnerist and when they also left him a little bit Macrista – comes to verbalize what many leaders think, including part of the Cabinet and the more dialogist opposition. “You have to use the power you have,” the union member told him at Wednesday’s meeting in Olivos, as published by Carlos Galván in Bugle. Cavalieri would have said something else: “Do you have or don’t you have power?”

“More and more people are asking him to react, to become a boss and to assert himself,” explains an Albertist. The Basualdo episode relegates a fact that seemed insurmountable: the departure of Marcela Losardo – close friend of Alberto – from the Ministry of Justice.

There is a fable that Carlos Menem used to tell on a plane trip with his team. A fable that Carlos Corach frequently reproduces among those who call him, who have been numerous since the death of the former president. Some have started to appropriate this fable (not Corach) to draw analogies with Alberto and confirm how important it is that the one who drives – whether he does it with or without success – earns the respect of others.

According to the fable, a boy says to his father: “Daddy, daddy, I want you to buy me a little monkey.” The father refuses, tells him that they live in an apartment, but the boy insists and the father, after several days, takes him to a pet store full of cages with monkeys. The baby chooses one. Dad asks how much it’s worth. “A thousand dollars,” said the seller. The man is surprised at the price. “What is happening is that this monkey has notions of English and French”, specifies the seller. In front of his father’s face, the baby chooses a second option. “It’s worth 2,500”, specifies the salesman, “because in addition to notions of English and French, he knows mathematics and physics”. The baby is looking for a third monkey. “It’s worth 4,000 ─ interrupts the salesperson ─ He speaks ten languages”.

Already exasperated by the situation, the father says he will now choose a monkey himself. He walks around the room and meets a wobbly little monkey, without grace. “It must be cheaper,” he supposes. The seller gets angry. He tells her not to waste her time, that it is the most expensive monkey in the place.

─ What can this monkey do? The man asks. The seller looks at her.

─ The truth? As he knows he doesn’t know how to do anything, but all the other monkeys call him boss.