The former president’s decision Mauricio Macri not to run in the presidential election cleared the way for Horacio Rodriguez Larreta y Patricia Bullrich in view of the PASO of Together for Change and could also accelerate for the next few days the Definition of PRO candidacies in the City of Buenos Aireswhile leaving one last question floating at the national level.
Macri announced his decision two days after meeting with the Buenos Aires head of governmentwith whom he talks not only about the national assembly of the PRO within Juntos por el Cambio but also about the City of Buenos Aires, where applicants supported by one sector or another abound and a central negotiation for the yellow party takes place.
The former president supports his cousin, along with Bullrich, Jorge Macriwhile Rodríguez Larreta maintained the position of “letting the Buenos Aires ministers run” Fernandez Quiros y Soledad Acuna and also the legislator Emmanuel Ferrario. However, after the meeting between Macri and Larreta and before the former president’s announcement, Ferrario confirmed that he will not compete.
The closeness between these three political events (the meeting, Ferrario’s decision and Macri’s) paints a panorama of imminent definitions in the City after the announcement of the former president, whose intention is for Rodríguez Larreta to order the inmate for the candidacy as soon as possible to head of government and support a PRO candidate to confront the radical Martín Lousteau, to whom he is close.
The impact of Macri’s announcement on the PRO intern: now, they look at Vidal
Neither Rodríguez Larreta nor Bullrich have intentions of getting out of the race for the presidential candidacy and they let Macri know so in all the meetings they had with him. His decision was a endorsement of that competition and at the same time had implicit an order so that the internal one does not devour the main opposition alliance.
The evaluation of the “team” (with a football metaphor included) and that “Together for Change has managed to overcome” the “false illusion of the saving individual” What Macri did in the video with which he communicated his decision not to compete was a message to one’s own in addition to an attempt to mark a contrast with Peronism.
With his step aside, Macri could speed up the definition in the City
But the decision of the former president he did not finish clearing the ground for the two main PRO contenders. The question that she leaves is what the deputy and former governor of Buenos Aires, María Eugenia Vidal, will do, who also made known her intention to compete for the presidential candidacy and clarified that she would not do it if Macri ran.
Now that the former president has excluded himself from the presidential race, Larreta and Bullrich will wait for a definition of Vidal, whom Macri encouraged to compete. He transcends that he sees the former governor as a synthesis of the two main candidates, who in turn would both like to have her in her ranks.
For now, the former governor welcomed the decision of the PRO referent, with praise for the “leaders who put speculation aside and they always put the Argentines first”.
Who benefits from Macri’s decision?
In the PRO it was always evaluated that Macri and Bullrich shared voters with the same profile and that a possible candidacy of the former president would block his former Security Minister, despite the fact that she always ratified her decision to compete. In that context, Bullrich is seen as the main beneficiary of Macri’s decision.
However, in larretism they do not make that reading. Sources from that sector told iProfessional that they trust the polls that the head of government has been carrying out and that they give him an advantage of about 6 points in the internal one. That is why they also believed that Macri would finally decide not to compete, as it happened.
The Buenos Aires president is committed to a presidential campaign focused on what close to him calls the “silent majority”: voters who, at the end of the road, will end up Tipping the scales for moderate candidatesa profile more akin to “anti-crack” speech of the head of government that to the position that Bullrich exhibits and, until now, also Macri.
Larreta and Bullrich gain centrality in the internal while they wait for a definition of Vidal
The evaluation they make in larretismo is that in the executive elections the electorate always “seeks the center” and not the extremes, as it does in a legislative election, where what is at stake are the majorities in Congress and the limits for the government in power.
In this sense, a PRO operator consulted by iProfesional reflected that there are many people who still do not know who they are going to vote for, know few candidates and are not immersed in politics but they know that “they do not want quilombos” and that is what they are looking for at the moment to choose. The current economic crisis would enhance this tendency to seek the moderate “center”.
Does the announcement impact the Frente de Todos and the future of Cristina Kirchner?
In Macri’s announcement there was no lack of criticism of the Government and Kirchnerism. The hardest was an allusion to the president Alberto Fernandez as a “puppet”, in the midst of questions to the “messianic” leadership as a reference to the figure of the vice president Cristina Kirchner.
In Kirchnerism, the hypothesis that Macri’s presidential candidacy could push Cristina Kirchner to change her decision not to be a “candidate for anything” and launch herself into the race again, as requested by La Cámpora.
On this line it can be inferred that the stepping next to Macri reinforces the possibility that the vice president will not go in search of a third term and register, as a maximum, for another role such as that of a candidate for senator.
However, the impact of the former president’s decision on the internal Frente de Todos is still unclear and also relative, because in the ruling party there are many sectors envisioning a possible electoral defeat regardless of the candidate they have to face.
On the way to the primaries, without Macri, Larreta, Bullrich, Vidal, Morales and Manes remain in the race
What did Larreta, Bullrich and other leaders of Together for Change say?
The two star PRO contenders praised Macri’s decision, whom they placed in a place of statesman and political beacon for Together for Change. In the UCR they also congratulated the former president for understanding that by stepping aside he contributes to order the internal of the alliance for the PASO in August.
Larreta maintained that Macri “makes a decision that makes clear his enormous vision, his generosity, courage and love for the Argentines,” while expressing his “pride” for “having walked with him these more than 20 years.” Besides He stressed that “his values, his management experience and his vision of the world will be fundamental for the time to come.”
For his part, Bullrich described Macri’s decision as “historic”to whom he attributed “greatness and generosity” and added: “Even being able to be president again has prioritized the interests of our country before his own, as very few leaders have done in Argentine history”.
Meanwhile, the president of the UCR, Gerardo Moraleswho always had a tirande relationship with the former president, hailed the announcement as “a good decision that helps the collective of Together for Change.”
The head of the block of national deputies of the UCR, Mario Negriconsidered that Macri’s decision “is not neutral” but that “it can contribute enormously so that the order of priorities is not the deepening of the differences in Together for Change, but rather work on the basis of a common program to offer the argentines”.
For his part, the head of the interblock of senators from Together for Change, alfredo cornejo, highlighted that “the difficult situation that the country is going through can be resolved by working together and without pettiness,” in an allusion to the former president’s decision. “We are a team that is prepared for the upcoming challenges,” he added.
