Surely before the end of the summer, barring some political imponderable, The Government will once once more change the face that will be in charge of the Chief of Staff, where John Manzur He has been in that role for just four months.
Officially, the information was denied and the denial will be almost inescapable. However, sources very close to the Tucuman governor, on leave, admitted in reserve that his departure from office is inexorable.
There is one of the few coincidences between the President and his chief of staff: neither of them is satisfied with Manzur’s role. For different reasons, of course.
Alberto Fernández and his closest group consider that, somehow, Manzur tried “take the stop” of the government management following the electoral blow of the primaries.
In any case, it would be a sin of origin. Manzur settled in the Casa Rosada following that defeat and, above all, in the face of the worst internal crisis that the ruling party experienced, triggered by the public proposals of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and the presentation of the resignations of her bishops in the cabinet.
The departure is not urgent and will be agreed with the President before the end of the summer
The displacement of his predecessor, now Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero, had been a growing demand in almost all sectors of the FdT that were not enrolled in what might symbolically be called Albertism.
Manzur’s landing was followed by a staging, which consisted of showing hyperactivity in decision-making, especially of himself. The official concept was that the Government reacted because it had heard the message from the polls. The opposition called it the “Plan Platita”, thanks to a misunderstanding by the former Minister of Health from Buenos Aires, Daniel Gollan.
Thus, Manzur began to convene cabinet meetings at 7 or 8 in the morning, a prohibitive schedule in Albertism. And his working day was frenetic with meetings, events, trips, hearings. With careful dissemination.
The maelstrom included getting on a prepo, via non-commercial plane, to a visit that Martín Guzmán was carrying out to New York and Washington in mid-October, within the framework of negotiations with the IMF for the debt.
The President and his courtly circle were not very amused by that fast-paced and encompassing style. Not only because they considered it artificial, but because it might show that before there was slowness, delays or inaction. “Juancito is like that”, they explained sarcastically.
But what Alberto F liked least, especially, is that Manzur informally let his expectations of running the race for a presidential candidacy transcend.
The good was brief. The Manzur gale lasted as long as a Tucuman breeze at siesta time in summer. Soon, the civil servants closest to the President began to avoid him, cabinet meetings (which ended) were emptied of him, and his public appearances thinned out.
The President obviously led that kind of boycott. This became more evident following the defeat in the legislative elections, when Alberto F felt empowered despite the result, which he celebrated as if he had won.
There was no going back in the link and the ignoring towards Manzur was in crescendo. In the escalation there were peak situations, such as when he was not included in the presidential trip to Rome and Glasgow (for now he is not scheduled to go to Moscow and Beijing either), or when he accompanied Alberto F y Guzmán in the almost three-hour meeting with provincial governors to vaguely share the status of the dialogue with the IMF and he was the only one of the three officials on the podium who had a picture but no sound, like our grandparents’ old television sets.
The evil deeds included the unofficial disclosure that members of the government cast regularly attended and attend Foreign Minister Cafiero’s office, converted into a virtual parallel Chief of Staff.
In addition to that trip to the US to accompany Guzmán, Manzur does not even carve out the most pressing issue for the Government for weeks: the discussion with the IMF. Beyond his high position, he is striking for his alleged contacts. Among them, Gustavo Cinosi, a lobbyist with an oscillating career. Or financier Diego Zuckerberg, whose setup in an office near Manzur was thwarted when the Pandora Papers leak exposed some, but not all, of his activities.
Manzur does not eat glass. It bothers him too much this non-place where he has been for weeks. He has tried to clarify it with the President, who denies any grudge once morest him, even though the facts reflect the opposite.
The last one happened days ago. The head of state launched on Tuesday the 18th in San Juan a public-private renewable energy cluster together with the host, Sergio Uñac, and those who govern five other provinces involved: Río Negro, Neuquén, Mendoza, Catamarca and La Rioja. Ministers Guzmán, Kulfas and De Pedro, and the Secretary of Energy, Darío Martínez, traveled with him. Manzur, who was going to be the central bridge with the governorates, was not invited.
That is why he has decided to return to Tucumán, in an exit without haste agreed with Alberto F, scheduled for February or March, depending on the times set by the negotiation with the Fund.
There is also a personal component to procrastination. On the one hand, Manzur wants to give the head of state time to prepare his replacement in office.
On the other hand, his return as governor may not be without conflict. Osvaldo Jaldo, his vice in charge of the Provincial Executive, is his intimate enemy and the truce that they established for his arrival in Buenos Aires might explode through the air. Perhaps that latent conflict will slow down his departure more than the President himself.
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