La Argentina alversificada – LA NACION / Titulares

A day with many news. Two new confirmed ministers, in Defense and Social Development. Two very relevant areas, which deserve a separate analysis.

On the one hand, what about Juan Zabaleta in Social Development is nothing new, it is the confirmation of what we knew. The mayor of Hurlingham resigns from that administration to take charge of an area that today is at the center of the Government’s concerns. But, above all, in the center of the concerns of Cristina Kirchner, who has an enormous sensitivity to know what is happening in the suburbs and to get the vote in the suburbs. There is a situation of concern there because there are objective factors that deteriorate the social situation: a lot of poverty, a lot of inflation.

On this climate political action is generated. There was something that has the Government very concerned, I do not know if both the Government and Cristina, and it is the taking of the municipality of Lomas de Zamora. It is very important because we are talking not only about the second municipality in the suburbs, but also about the headquarters of Martín Insaurralde, who is an ally of Cristina and Máximo Kirchner. We could say that it is the heart of the ruling suburban community, perhaps more than La Matanza, which is the first municipality.

Here the crossed reproaches begin. There is a tension with the Evita Movement that makes many around Cristina begin to wonder if she is behind what happened. The «Chino» Navarro is from there. But from the Evita Movement they say that it has nothing to do with it, that it has been people from the left and that they have been anticipating that there would be problems.

The tension is on the one hand for the lists and on the other because another mayor arrives at the management of Social Action. The previous one was Jorge Ferraresi in Habitat. If we look at the history of social policy since 2001, there has been a growing confrontation between leaders and representatives of social movements, between mayors and social movements, because as of 2001, social movements sat at the table, they are one more actor of politics and pose a different distribution of power. With a suburban mayor in the Ministry of Social Action like Zabaleta, they feel that they lose control of that lever.

Last Monday we discussed a phrase that is important to me, not only from the point of view of this intern but from the conceptual point of view. It belongs to Andrés “El Cuervo” Larroque, minister of Social Action of the province, who said that the plans have to end at some point. The triumph of a social policy is that there are no plans. In addition, he said, it is aberrant that social movements are the ones that assign the plans, the ones that tell us to whom it should be given and to whom it should not. That fell like a bomb.

Zabaleta’s displacement from Hurlingham to the Ministry of Social Action frees the municipality of Hurlingham. Now there will be Damián Selci, from La Cámpora. It is an important position in the first electoral section, where they already have Mercedes, and now they conquer this new place in the heart of Kirchnerism that is the suburbs.

There was a major demonstration on August 7 from San Cayetano, in which organizers say there were 300,000 attendees in the Capital, and around 1,000,000 throughout the country. Here a question mark opens within the ruling party, within Kirchnerism, where they wonder who is organizing these mobilizations. In Moreno, in Lomas de Zamora, it is the non-Kirchnerist, non-Peronist left. Even so close to Cristina they wonder: “Are there people of ours? Who are they working for? And that’s where the conspiracy theories begin. How is it that the Evita Movement behaves like this in the suburbs and is an ally of Juan Schiaretti in Córdoba? At the very least, a conversation is needed between Persico and Navarro, the leaders of the Evita Movement who are Alberto’s officials, and Cristina and Máximo Kirchner, or La Cámpora. There is an internal crack there.

What does the appointment of Jorge Taiana mean? It is the designation in the Ministry of Defense of someone from Cristina’s kidney. What is the merit of Taiana? It is to have left with Cristina when Florencio Randazzo raised his candidacy against Cristina in 2017. Candidacy that, it must be remembered, had Alberto Fernández as campaign manager and the Evita Movement as territorial support. If one begins to do the genealogy of conflict that we see today, it goes back much further than we can suppose.

Today Taiana finds a place of great volume in the cabinet, because the Ministry of Defense is an osmotic membrane of Argentina with the world. So that’s what Cristina takes. The first question, does Cristina designate Taiana? No. The second question, did Alberto consult with Cristina to appoint Taiana? No. I think they are tributes that Alberto makes by interpreting what Cristina may like. Among other things because, when Taiana goes from the Senate to the Ministry, he frees a seat that will now be occupied by Juliana Di Tullio, who is the first substitute on that list of 2017 in which Cristina-Taiana was.

What does Taiana’s entry into Defense mean?

I would like to focus on what the figure of Taiana raises there. First, it raises a mystery for the retired military, with whom it generates a rarefied climate, because Taiana is seen as Montonero. You can see it as they saw Nilda Garré. The active military, the chiefs of the Armed Forces, prefer to see it differently, saying: «They put someone of great hierarchy, a Peronist with a black palate, Cristina’s man, they are dedicating us to someone of the first level.»

Next October 5 is the anniversary of a very important bloody episode in Argentine history, which was the baptism of the Montoneros as an army, taking a regiment in Formosa. Seven conscripts and nine montoneros died there. The question that many military men are asking is what Taiana is going to say when the anniversary of October 5 is commemorated. Who are you going to honor from both sides? The toughest military men take it as a test to see what message that designation covers.

There is another important dimension that has to do with foreign policy. Taiana participated as a representative of the Senate Foreign Relations Commission in a meeting with Jake Sullivan, Joe Biden’s National Security advisor, where Eduardo Valdés was also present, as a representative of the Deputies. We do not know if he spoke there, but Sullivan has come from proposing to Brazil an alliance with NATO in exchange for not giving the business of 5G, the fifth generation telecommunications technology, to the Chinese Huawei, in a tender that is ongoing . Today there is a very harsh statement from the Chinese embassy in Brasilia that denounces «intolerable pressure» and calls for transparency. China calls for transparency.

This is projected on Argentina as well. Sullivan during his visit to Buenos Aires offered to transfer technology in the field of vaccine manufacturing in Argentina. Read: no Sinopharm no Sputnik. And sell military equipment so that the country does not buy warplanes from either the Chinese or Russia. That is what the Government is talking about with the powers. Defense issues. Well, Taiana is in that discussion and it is anyone’s guess. Will you respond to Cristina’s foreign policy ideas or will you respond to Alberto’s?

Rossi’s departure from the cabinet

Both in the Instituto Patria and in La Cámpora there has been and is enormous discomfort over the departure of Agustín Rossi from the Cabinet because they saw him as a future Chief of Staff. Rossi, a man with enormous political experience and a very good relationship with the opposition, because for years he was the head of the Kirchnerist bloc in Congress.

Then a disturbing interpretation appears. Did someone pack Rossi to go to Santa Fe, to get him out of the way, knowing that Cristina and Máximo Kirchner would have liked him to be chief of staff? Could it have been Cafiero who, seeing that a replacement was coming, encouraged him to go to Santa Fe? This question is asked at the Instituto Patria and at La Cámpora. Rossi’s decision means a break with Peronism in Santa Fe and the possibility of losing votes. Did he do it out of his own vocation or because someone, to get him out of the cabinet, told him: «Throw yourself, there is water» and there was no water?

The climate is one of great tension and, in this context, the appointment of Jorge Taiana to the head of Defense is very important. Cristina should take it as recognition and she should like that Rossi is replaced by someone similar and who belongs to the same «suit» or political line as him. However, I do not know if the vice president manages to stitch up all the differences that exist with an Alberto Fernández who cuts himself off on many issues.

This Monday, for example, when giving a speech at Tecnópolis, the head of state said something that caused great discomfort in the ranks of the ruling party: that the internet is going to be a public service. The first problem is that, as determined by a Decree of Necessity and Urgency that Alberto Fernández signed last year, the internet is already a public service, so it is not understood what he meant on this occasion. The question they ask themselves, then, those who are at the forefront of the electoral campaign is, was there a need to irritate, at this moment, Clarín, Telefónica, Claro, Telecentro and the rest of the companies that handle the media, reminding them that they are the enemy of the people and that they steal from the people – as Fernández said – with the tariffs? This is a very serious accusation made in the middle of the electoral campaign, when all politicians depend on the media space. Is it smart to do it? Neither Cristina nor La Cámpora were aware of this.

One of the reasons why discomfort was generated is because, after his statements, he has to give explanations -for example- no less than the Minister of the Interior, Wado de Pedro, who is the representative of the Government for the Anses in Telecom, company belonging to Grupo Clarín. In that sense, a hypothetical scenario, which opens up as a question, would be that – seeing how the game comes and what these unconsulted decisions generate – that De Pedro ends up leaving that place in Telecom. Not as a gesture towards Clarín, but towards Alberto. It is very difficult. But that version circulated today in the telecommunications environment.

There are many new developments in the public services sector, which is central because, due to inflation, the Government lags the exchange rate and rates. In relation to this, it should be remembered that Martín Guzmán wanted to fire the undersecretary of Electric Power, Federico Basualdo, for refusing to a more severe increase in rates, which probably would have further boosted inflation. This produces two effects: accompanying entrepreneurs. And, others, who want to go.

Within the first group is Edenor, from the Vila-Manzano-Filiberti group. In the first meeting of the board of directors of this company, a month ago, different representatives of the owners participated, with solemnity, all dressed in blue suits. Progress was made with the appointment of the new director of Institutional Relations and Communication of the company: Fabián Doman. In the midst of them, a boy in jeans, sneakers and a sweater appeared, who said that he was going on behalf of his father to take over the financial management of the company. This is the son of Ricardo Depresbíteris, the owner of Covelia, who constantly clarifies that this waste collection company has nothing to do with Moyano, although he is closely linked to the union leader.

On Depresbyteris it is important to make two comments. On the one hand, he is a man who exercises a very dominant position throughout the suburbs in garbage collection. When he has been threatened with being displaced (in places like Esteban Echeverría and Quilmes), Moyano became very nervous and argued himself with the mayors on behalf of Depresbíteris. In turn, it should be noted that, when Marcelo Figueiras, president of Laboratorios Richmond, went out to form a trust to build the plant for the large-scale manufacture of the Sputnik V vaccine in Argentina, Depresbíteris contributed a large part of the money.

The following questions then arise: Is Depresbíteris a hidden partner of Edenor? Did the Government, which granted Edenor de Pampa Energía’s pass to Manzano / Vila / Filiberti, know that Depresbíteris was inside? Indeed, is it inside?

Seeing him at that meeting, Doman called Manzano and told him it was a scandal. They say that even the board of directors had to be redone, a question that I find hard to believe. Anyway, although Manzano emphasizes that it is important to take care of the …