The day after the most feared STEP arrived and Union for the Fatherland had to recalculate. While the Sergio Massa The Minister of Economy validated a 22% devaluation of the peso ordered by the Central Bank, as the first preventive measure to overcome the libertarian wave that the crypto dollar foreshadowed with the first results on Sunday, the Sergio Massa candidate began to tweak his strategy to force a ballotage con Javier Miley. The option that agitates his team, which tries to recover from the blow in time, is “Massa or madness”.
He had the early morning to prepare for the opening of the markets. “You had to move first,” explained a government source, the devaluation advance, a measure that Massa himself resisted for months despite the inflationary pressure and avoiding it was part of his company contract with Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. The band-aid metaphor is repeated: better now, quickly, to allow time for recovery in October.
The campaign for the generals has already started, sneaking in the middle of the devaluation. Strictly speaking, it started at 18:11 on Sunday. At that time, as he told Letter Pthe massista plants were already opening their umbrellas and they prayed to the polarization with Milei. About 14 hours later, the future strategy was more complete.
“There is a new opposition: Milei. We must build a new majority: Massa”is he leitmotif that they elaborated in a sector of UP. It remains to know the reaction of the remaining partner, Kirchnerism, which had a bitter celebration with the results in the province of Buenos Aires. The concept of “new majority” accompanies the Tigrense since 2019, when He used it to reconcile with Kirchnerism to confront Cambiemos.
Connoisseur of the cloth, because he suffered it in 2015, when he was left out of the second round, Massa bets that Bullrich will be diluted in front of the libertarian, who emerged not only competitive from the PASO but strengthened as an opposition option. With the aim of both neutralizing each other – “They are left fighting for those votes to see who reaches the ballotage“, they argue-, in UP they discount the winner of that fight. To sustain it, they appeal to the numbers: “Mauricio Macri He got 32% in the 2019 PASO and yesterday JxC got less than that Macri”.
Speaking of governmentism in the doldrums, the Government did not reach the ceiling of 30 points that he intended to play with his fingers, a result that would have been bad enough. The thesis of “doing the iron” that in the bunker they attribute to the consultant Antoni Gutiérrez Rubí It turned out to be a lead lifeline: the idea is that it couldn’t go any worse (30%) and in the end it could happen.
There is something of that in the reissued strategy: in the massismo they boast that, “against all odds, in very difficult days”, with the economy and insecurity at the top of the agenda, “we gave the first battle and stayed in the race “. the glass half full.
Hope France
The mirror in which Massa looks at himself is France again. When putting on the pre-candidate suit, the Minister of Economy recalled the history of Emmanuel Macron as an official who managed the finances of his country and later assumed the presidency (there was a resignation involved, a fact that massismo preferred to ignore). Now French is once again a reference: In 2022, despite social discontent, Macron prevailed in the ballotage before the extreme right, represented by Marine Le Penwhom he had already beaten in 2017 and it seemed that he could not do it again.
“Peronism is going to be realigned”, is the mantra of massismo to allow themselves to dream. It is not difficult to guess where you are looking: the objective is to distribute the votes of Juan Schiaretti in Córdoba, a province that gave Milei first place, and that part of the orphaned moderate electorate of Horacio Rodriguez Larreta go to UP in the generals and not to Bullrich, campaign of fear through.
The libertarian demonization is underway. “It’s Massa against madness”is the cry of the war that begins.
