The recent rupture of Together for Change in Tierra del Fuego added another chapter to the internal tensions of the main opposition coalition, which this week saw Horacio Rodríguez Larreta hardening his speech, Patricia Bullrich agreeing to alliances within the front and Gerardo Morales launched to compete for the Presidency with criticism of former president Mauricio Macri.
“The decision to go with the PRO to the governorship without integrating JxC is due to a series of events that have been happening throughout these days and that have made consensus increasingly difficult,” said national deputy Héctor in radio statements yesterday. Stefani, yellow reference in Tierra del Fuego.
In this way, the PRO will present in the Fuegian elections on May 14 lists with its own candidates outside the coalition that it shares at the national level with radicalism and the Civic Coalition, a situation that will be repeated in the provinces where the alliance is also broke: Río Negro and Neuquén.
In the case of Tierra del Fuego, the outcome was the result of the lack of agreements between Stefani himself and national senator Pablo Blanco, a UCR candidate for governor, to go to an internship.
Similar discussions are taking place in other provinces, such as Tucumán and Mendoza, where there is unrest and fractures might be imminent.
The tension in the province of Cuyo began when the current senator Alfredo Cornejo formalized his candidacy for governor, which generated strong discomfort in the national deputy and referent of the Mendoza PRO, Omar De Marchi.
For De Marchi, Cornejo’s launch was “hasty and inopportune”, and that cross triggered a tough discussion between Larreta, who supports De Marchi, and Bullrich, Cornejo’s defender.
Despite the visits that Larreta himself made to Mendoza with the intention of cooling down and corseting the conflict between the two, yesterday the dispute escalated once more and was exposed in a message in which De Marchi himself denied a possible agreement to compete internally with Cornejo .
«The obsession to control everything. The model was exposed. Today, the pressures in the newsrooms of the newspapers witnessed what is coming. My commitment is to the balance of power in Mendoza. Although many do not understand it,” De Marchi posted on Twitter.
The same day of his announcement, versions began to spread indicating that the deputy had given in to pressure from the PRO leadership, led by Bullrich, so as not to break the coalition and dispute with the radicals in a STEP.
In any case, De Marchi himself said that he will announce his final decision only on April 12.
A similar situation occurs in Tucumán, where there will be no inmates because there was no agreement between the current mayor of the provincial capital and bishop of Larreta, Germán Alfaro (PRO), and deputy Roberto Sánchez (UCR), chosen by the governor of Jujuy and president of the National Committee of radicalism, Gerardo Morales.
Although the only option to avoid the fracture of JxC is that both parties manage to rally behind a single candidate, this possibility appears more distant following in the first days of the week both registered separate fronts before the Provincial Electoral Board of Tucumán.
Added to this was the fact that on Thursday the UCR listed ex-senator and ex-radical deputy José Cano as a candidate for the mayor of San Miguel, making the path of a joint formula with the PRO for the May 14 elections even more remote.
With this panorama, the JxC presidential candidates continued their campaigns this week, with Larreta, Bullrich and Morales being the most restless regarding deploying their weapons.
In this sense, the mayor of Buenos Aires rehearsed an impasse to his alleged ‘dialogue’ speech -like the one he used in the announcement of its launch- by stating in various interviews that if he is elected president he will promote the idea of ”reducing by half” the ministries of the national administration.
At that point, Larreta went on to say that the Women, Gender and Diversity portfolio generates “bureaucracy” and that “the importance that one gives to an issue in the Government does not depend on having a ministry, secretary or undersecretary.”
“The only thing the ministry puts in is more bureaucracy,” Larreta said in statements to Radio Rivadavia in advance of the International Day of Working Women, which opened a strong controversy over her position regarding the demand for greater equality.
This position, which Larreta ratified yesterday in a dialogue with Radio Mitre, was read as a nod to the electorate more prone to a “hard” agenda, of reduction of the State and cuts, the same one that Bullrich, his main competitor, vehemently proclaims.
One of Larreta’s favorites to be his successor, Buenos Aires Minister of Education Soledad Acuña, surprisingly defended the idea of her political boss to “close” said portfolio.
This definition, in addition, had the support of Bullirch, the head of the PRO.
«We must put an end, once and for all, to the stories. Since its creation, the Ministry of Women has only served to create political positions and as a box for militancy,” Acuña said in a thread of tweets in which the endorsement of the leader of the hawks, the wing last of the yellow party.
«Soledad, they are like that: they will never defend women who think differently. Not waste time. They defend privileges, not rights,” said the former Security Minister.
But in addition to that definition, the head of the PRO announced yesterday a formal approach with the representative of the United Republicans Ricardo López Murphy.
«Argentina’s potential is colossal and undeniable. With strength, courage and commitment, we are going to move our Nation forward and overwhelm Kirchnerism at the polls,” Bullrich sought to provoke.
López Murphy, whose discourse on human rights borders on denialism, might be the pre-candidate for Buenos Aires head of government who competes for the hardest wing of the coalition.
“I would rather spend on first aid rooms, on rooms in hospitals that receive the citizens of Buenos Aires who are in an emergency, than spend on parades, murgas and others,” challenged the economist at the end of February in dialogue with the AM 990 radio.
In contrast, the leader who does seem comfortable with Larreta’s imprint is the radical from Jujuy Gerardo Morales, who next Wednesday will launch his presidential candidacy for radicalism within the framework of JxC from the Teatro Gran Rex.
Morales will thus join the batch of competitors for the candidacy for president of JxC, where Larreta himself, Patricia Bullrich, deputy María Eugenia Vidal, Peronist Miguel Pichetto and the founder of the Civic Coalition, Elisa Carrió, await him as potential rivals.
Although there is speculation regarding a possible crossed formula between Morales and Larreta -something driven by the rapprochement that both had in recent times, with photos in Jujuy at the end of February and this week at the Expoagro fair-, in recent days the headline of the National Committee of the UCR returned to stress the internal JxC with a battery of challenging messages.
“There is a government plan for JxC, which is what we did not have in 2015,” Morales sought to differentiate himself when visiting Expoagro, where he remarked that “radicalism is contributing a lot to JxC” and reiterated the arguments for his launch as a candidate.
But before launching himself, Morales dispatched himself once morest Mauricio Macri himself – who will remain in Europe until the end of March – by stating that the former president has “a logic” in which “weaken radicalism” is present.
«Everything that can be done to weaken radicalism or avoid the possibility of a radical president is in the logic of Mauricio (Macri) and the PRO. There is a lot of foam, and cross operations in Together for Change,” Morales reproached in statements to Radio La Red.
Telam Agency
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