The relationship between Alberto Fernández and Foreign Minister Felipe Solá, at the worst moment

The relationship between President Alberto Fernández and Foreign Minister Felipe Solá faces an uncertain future. They recognize him at the Casa Rosada and at the Palacio San Martín. In the executive, they repeat that the Head of State does not answer the phone and does not answer the Minister of Foreign Affairs. This week, the actions of the double governor of Buenos Aires they have fallen back into considerations president and rumors of possible replacements exploded. One thing is certain: this weekend there will be no news. Solá will accompany Fernández on Tuesday during the state visit to Chile. And after? For now, everyone is guessing. Chancellor does not intend to step down.

The Foreign Office’s greetings on its institutional Twitter account to new United States President Joe Biden, which included veiled criticisms of Donald Trump in the same post, have filled the president’s patience, according to accounts from some of Solá’s colleagues. within the cabinet. “It looked more like a manifesto from the Evita movement than a statement from the Foreign Ministry,” they lamented. At the Chancellery, they reduced the importance of the text. “It was a tweet, not a statement”, minimize. In the executive, they stress that the error was “political and not communicational”.

The president already had “in pectore” the letter in which he worked with the Argentine Ambassador to Washington Jorge Argüello and had to anticipate with a formal greeting without double reading on Twitter. “It was almost a denial,” they insisted on Rosada.

Solá’s slip after the phone call with Biden, when he was already elected president of the world’s leading power, was still fresh in the memory of the president. The Chancellor pointed out in an interview that Fernández asked the former vice president of Barack Obama to intermediary to replace Mark Rosen, Director of the United States at the IMF.

Unofficially, presidential sources discredited Solá. They then let it be known that the Minister of Foreign Affairs had not even participated in the conversation with Biden, because – instead of attending the Rosada, where Fernández was located – he went to Olivos. The Minister of the Economy Martín Guzmán and the Argentinian director to the IMF Sergio Chodos held a videoconference the same day with Rosen, who to be removed from his post requires an agreement in the US Senate. President ended up publicly acknowledging the communicational short-circuit with Solá and abandoned it.

Wednesday – via Twitter – speech creaked again for the Chancellor, according to the description of officials with offices at Casa Rosada.

Solá, like many of his predecessors, a part of the most important relations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs intervened. The relationship with the United States is managed between Argüello and Strategic Affairs Secretary Gustavo Beliz, who also leads relations with the Church and weaves those with multilateral credit organizations such as IDB, CAF, FonPlata and BICE. with which she successfully approved $ 2.45 billion in loans. The link with the IMF depends on Guzmán and relations with China are concentrated by the new ambassador Sabino Vaca Narvaja (who took office after the noisy departure of Luis María Kreckler). The deal with Russia for the coronavirus vaccine was due to the president’s direct management with Vladimir Putin.

Solá’s absence on Fernández’s excursion to Uruguay – where Eastern Foreign Minister Francisco Bustillo was located – was interpreted not at the Foreign Ministry as a shame, but as part of the informal style of the chair.

Ambassador Argüello also sounds like a possible candidate, but in La Rosada they relativize these versions. “The president is very satisfied with him. We are not going to undress one saint to dress another, ”they specify.

In the last hours, the hypothesis that Ambassador to Brazil Daniel Scioli could take Solá’s place has gained ground. The government celebrates the efforts of the former presidential candidate in Brasilia. The two had dinner together at Villa La Ñata with Jair Bolsonaro’s influential strategic affairs secretary, Flavio Viana Rocha.

Reports of Solá’s departure are similar to the criticisms former Housing Minister María Eugenia Bielsa received before leaving her post. However, the former president of Buenos Aires does not have the same weight as the former vice-governor of Santa Fe. Although he does not have his own army, he was instrumental in creating of the Frente de Todos: he broke the blockade to Sergio Massa and approached Cristina Kirchner, although today he accumulates some criticism at the Patria Institute and the words of the vice-president on the fear that the ministers still perch on it. Solá continues to be, moreover, the first member of the Congress of the National PJ of the Province, which Fernández aspires to chair.

If the president forced Solá to come out on bad terms, he could face consequences. The agent always look for an elegant outlet for your officials. The coveted UNESCO embassy in Paris, left vacant after the death of Pino Solanas – and rejected by Bielsa after being sacked – remains empty. That doesn’t seem like much to the current head – on paper – of Argentinian diplomacy.

The mention of an official’s “Evita manifesto” may not be accidental. The group of Emilio Pérsico – chief of staff in Solá’s cabinet in the province – and Fernando “Chino” Navarro – both in executive positions – supported in 2019 the pre-candidacy for the presidency of the current Minister of Foreign Affairs, who they do not let go of his hand. “We are the companions of Felipe and he is very close to Evita”, they recall in the organization that in 2014 he supported the candidacy of Jorge Taiana, another of the names that sounds – but not the most sure – to replace Solá, whom he knows and Estimate of the National Buenos Aires. Taiana left Evita in 2017 to share the ballot with Cristina Kirchner.