One thing became clear on Sunday: Kicillof, not Milei, is the one who finally buried Cristina. We don't know if it will be forever. We've been suffering for 20 years with Cristina, who has more lives than a cat. Let's see if it happens like with Frane Selak, the Croatian who escaped death seven times and ended up winning the lottery.
The fact is that the nails in the coffin Milei promised to put down were put there by someone Cristina called an heir and now calls a traitor . Kicillof won because the mayors defeated La Cámpora. The election resolved the Peronist internal conflict. And Cristina can't stand it: hatred prevented her from even congratulating him. She was paralyzed, like when she lost the presidency to Macri and refused to hand over power to him. Milei, the other big loser, shares with her that obtuse idea that an adversary is an enemy. All sectarianisms touch each other deep down.
"We are not going back even a millimeter: we are going to accelerate the course," said Milei.
At one point, Milei rode it better. On Wednesday, he took to the stage at the closing of the campaign in Moreno. He jumped and shouted like a madman, as if what he believes should be imposed on everyone. He had arrived with fake activists wearing ski masks, recruited or hired from the dissident River Plate supporters. Pathetic. But on Sunday, he spoke to the country as a normal politician is expected to after people tell him: you're making a mistake. He acknowledged the defeat and promised self-criticism and change.
He also said he wouldn't compromise the economic program and would keep the surplus and inflation low. Any other message would have further frightened markets, already spooked by the Peronist victory. He contained them, pampered them with the reduction of reserve requirements, and even managed to renew the debt at a lower rate, which remains very high, although lower than before the election. That he doesn't have it easy was immediately proven: Volatility returned on Friday.
We'll have to get used to this and to another, perhaps more dangerous, tension that shakes the government from within: the permanent and ruthless internal conflict. Almost nothing can be explained by a single reason, not even this defeat. Note: the punishment in a province where the economic downturn hits jobs and wages the hardest; Milei's aggression toward almost everyone and almost everyone's desire to get even with him; the lack of interest and inexperience in dealing with non-Peronists and the Peronists who only suffered due to Milei's lack of prosecutors. And Milei's arrogance of"we don't need anyone": "victory in war does not depend on the number of soldiers but on the forces that come from heaven." It seems that the appeal to the Maccabees isn't working.
Add in the corruption allegations, which only add to the complexity. Faced with so many calamities, how come they don't stop the internal war? Two days before the election, Fat Dan, Twitter's chief and main communicator, was in full campaign mode, not to beat the Peronists but to attack their own, like Luis Juez and Guillermo Francos, Chief of Staff. They say that for the Radicals, an election is what happens between two internal battles. For the Millennium Movement, too.
Two examples, from this Friday. Twitter user Pedro Lantaron, who was also a candidate, posted a photo of Santiago Caputo's back being tattooed with a Parravicini drawing and this text:"You're going to stay with the former Kirchnerist shipowner accused of stealing the audit money." The unnamed person accused is Sebastián Pareja. The unnamed recipient is Milei.
Hours earlier, another troll had sent Pareja to the front:"I just saw a guy rob a lady outside the Coto, Pareja and that kid Vera arrived and took him to the Rosada to lead a new political panel for La Libertad Avanza." Trolls live in a world apart. They have fun pushing overboard those who travel in the same boat as them. Another psychologist there. Those responsible for the libertarian misfortunes aren't them, they're the others.
No one controls them. They've become independent. They used to endorse everything, now they criticize almost everything. Milei understands that logic. She doesn't get involved, although she spoke with Fat Dan to try to lower the decibels. Deep down, she has no idea how to stop the fight.
Like Perón, who set up a committee to avoid solving a problem, Milei set up a pair of political committees: one national and one provincial. At the first meeting on Tuesday, they almost came to blows. Commissioner Bondarenko, head of the list in the strategic third section, rebuked Caputo for the criticism from his Twitter users."If we're going to start like this, I'm leaving," the unemployed advisor interrupted. Karina bit her tongue and calmed the situation.
Behind the scenes, there are personal hatreds and growing grievances. Caputo, for the alliances promoted by the Menems and for the casting process for selecting candidates, which he says is a disaster. It's clear they don't seem like the best. Obviously, Caputo doesn't attack Karina, who is ultimately the one who legalizes everything. Karina and the Menems, with whom Francos now somewhat agrees, complain about Never Again, Cristina, the linchpin of the campaign strategy devised by Caputo. They say it's an old slogan and doesn't work. And that it was a mistake to nationalize the election. They also have a point.
Illustration: Agustín Sciammarella.
Milei set up another negotiating table with the governors and appointed Lisandro Catalán, a Francos-friendly official, as Minister of the Interior, thus moving up a slot. He also added Minister Caputo so they could decide on budget allocations. Another concession to the provinces: they will discuss budget allocations, something they had previously rejected. The message to the governors was: we won't give you control of the ATN, but you will determine the composition of spending, keeping within one limit: maintaining the surplus established with the Fund.
There's a month and a half left until the October election. If, with two years of falling inflation, the macroeconomic situation hasn't caught up with the microeconomic situation, it won't happen now either. But it will be a different kind of election, because there will be a single ballot and it won't bear the weight of the local interest it had in the Province. The government is betting on narrowing the gap. Caputo, the minister, took the time to move to Carajo, the streaming channel of Fat Dan, and launch a new theorem: how to win by losing. It could be stated something like this: we need governability; we won't have a majority in Congress. Our goal is far beyond these elections, which are over-sized. Okay, champ. And how do you plan to achieve governability? By betting on the Prode (Democratic Party of Argentina)?
