The ex-president Mauricio Macri insisted that if Together for Change returns to the Government in 2023, the opposition coalition must “go to the bottom” with a series of budget reduction measures or direct privatization of state companies, and mentioned as a witness case Argentinian airlinesabout which he said: “You are going to lose 700 million dollars and it is paid by people who never travel by plane.”
On Thursday night, Macri visited Jonatan Viale on his LN+ program, where he elaborated on what his future would be for the 2023 elections.
They first talked about leaving Marcelo Gallardo as River’s DT. Macri said that he was a great leader within River and that it is not easy to build teams. “Gallardo is a cycle that is history in River, it is not easy to leave with well-earned prestige, but it is difficult to put together a team every year. It is not easy that every year they make you renew the team”assured.
“We are not an alternation, we are a change,” Macri remarked on the other hand, and said that, in case of returning to government, the changes must be deepened. About the country, he said: “Nobody doubts our talent and abilities… the world demands us. The issue is that it has cost us as a society to form teams. Argentina has always fallen in love with believing that there is a savior. The last one was Maradona.”
About his new book, he said: “I wrote it for the kids… to transmit leadership experiences. Then came the company, then Boca, the City, the presidency and then I add the why, values and ideas and conviction to return to power. We are not an alternation, we are the change. We have to be the change, otherwise we are nothing”.
With an eye on the elections, he assured: “Argentina, next year, is going to undergo a profound change and they [los jóvenes] they are the protagonists. So I tell everyone: please give us one more chance, Together for Change gained experience”.
When asked what they learned in JxC when it was government, he said: “I see, this is not a linear path, I see improvements. Many leaders trying to transmit, to debate. From 2015 when we arrived with a commitment to defend the republic and started having to govern to today, there is an experience. There is a debate and a lot is missing. I see a positive evolution, of course, that there are noises that voters do not like, when there are individualisms, egos”.
Macri did not want to discuss the sayings of Facundo Manes and safe: “I am here to defend ideas, values so that our young people don’t leave and I recommend to our leaders that they use the communication time to talk about their ideas, not to talk with those who compete. I assure you that they do not get a single vote. Every time they attack someone from the coalition they lose votes. Those of us who have to set the example are together for the change, we have to compete with height and not disqualify the other”.
“One of the great problems that Argentina has had, for which unfortunately we have been the only ones who have regressed in the last 50 years, is that we have closed ourselves off as a society,” analyzed the former president and added: “Under the concept that we were infinitely rich, that we could live with what was ours and that we could be all different from the others and that it would still do well for us, we closed down. This started to be a comfort that created a fear of competition and was somewhat destructive. What we need is to compete with ourselves and with the world and there we are going to find spaces for development”.
While, Macri also refused to add the liberals to JxC: “No, Milei is on her way. His way is respectable, he builds his identity. I believe in ideas and freedom, he has his style and I have mine”.
“Here nobody governs. Argentina today is adrift, aimlessly, trying to cover patches from one day to the next, with an inflation that is on track to exceed 100% with few dollars. They do not comply with what he promised, they did not start ordering the tariff issue before we ran out of energy, ”the former president complained.
Macri added: “I say that I got the third subsoil, now it will be the seventh subsoil. What we had fixed they messed up and what we didn’t fix they made it worse. But the huge difference, for which I am optimistic, is made by people. People ask for more changes, more freedom”.
Regarding a possible devaluation, he said: “We have to establish trust, that we are going to have a healthy budget. That we are not going to spend more than you earn. Here they continue to defend the privileges of a few, leaving the majority out.”
“Populism injects you with fear, and then leads you to resignation so that you do not aspire to more. I tell the Argentines that by working, not with magicians, we can get ahead. Populism is very contagious, so within our space we have been acquiring the habit and it is no more. We cannot steal more from the people with taxes,” Macri assured. He also denied that when he talks about “light populism” refers to Horacio Rodriguez Larreta and said that the relationship with the head of the Buenos Aires Government is very good: “I want to help you so you can express your ideas”.
Macri also said that, in the event that JxC returns to government, the Frente de Todos will be violent again: “They have no democratic commitment. They are going to return not with 14 tons of stones, but with 140 tons”.
Regarding the second round in Brazil, if he preferred Lula or Bolsonaro, Macri replied: “I got along very well with Bolsonaro. We promote Mercosur. I hope that, whoever wins, we continue along these lines. You cannot get ahead closed to the world. Argentina needs Brazil and Brazil also needs Argentina, but we all need to open up to the world”.
At the end of the interview, when asked if his family wanted him to be a candidate, he admitted: “[Juliana] does not want him to be a candidate, the sorceress does not want. She agrees that it would be nice.”
THE NATION