Macri faces a preppy rebellion: He lost in his posh prep school and rugby players are voting Peronist
A group of Peronist rugby players complicated the strategy that Mauricio Macri traced with the object to get more voting station monitors to control October's general elections. As explained by LPO, internal questionings arose in the Argentinian government due to an alleged bad monitoring in the primaries, where the ruling party lost by 15 points to Alberto Fernández.
That's the reason why Macri decided to activate some tools, such as social media trolls, to gain monitors. Among other strategies, the campaign that gained more notoriety was the one where a group of rugby players offered themselves to guard the urns to prevent a triumph by Peronism.
This group was leaded by Guillermo Volponi, a councilman of the ruling party in Mar del Plata City -a sort of The Hamptons for people in Buenos Aires- who shares political space with Congressman Guillermo Montenegro, another rugby lover.
"In October, #rugby players from a lot of clubs all over the country will go to guard the urns, national rugby crusade against fraud!," tweeted Volponi and received hundreds of replies.
It is important to remember that rugby is one of the upper classes' favorite sports in Argentina, and that Mauricio Macri, son of a business tycoon, has harvested since the beginnings of his political career a strong support from the wealthiest sectors.
However, Volponi's campaign generated an unexpected reaction to the Casa Rosada, within the rugby sector in Mar del Plata City. A group of players, members of technical staff, and people otherwise linked to rugby clubs in Mar del Plata/Batan signed a letter addressed to the councilman to repudiate his campaign and to announce that they will vote for Fernández.
"It's clear by his expressions that he tries to generalize the stand of a great mayority of players of our sport, taking for granted that most rugby players support this government, and to summon them to watch the ballots in an anti K[irchnerist electoral] fraud", reads the letter to which LPO had access.
"It's been made clear that neither you, Mr. President Macri, or Mme. Governor Vidal, or Mr. Intendant to Cambiemos, Dr. Arrollo, have been capable to realize that in the last elections thousands and thousands of Argentinians, including hundreds of rugby players, monitored the list that had an appalling win in the urns with a message which was full of desperation for you to stop suppressing us with your devastation policies," complained the Peronist rugby players.
"We guarantee you that in October we'll be thousands of ruhby players that will monitor the hope and the end of this aweful political process," remarked the athletes.
The posh school
If the Peronist rugby players insurrection wasn't enough, in the last hours it was announced that Macri lost the primaries in his posh prep school, Cardenal Newman, where he attended high school and from which he drew a large part of his cabinet.
In that institute, located in San Isidro -a municipality with upper class neighborhoods-, Macri got 1,195 votes, exactly 40%, and was second behind Alberto Fernández, who got 1,217 votes (40.74%.)
Strikingly, there was a ballot cut that damaged the president in his own school, since María Eugenia Vidal beat Axel Kicillof by a 43.32% to 40.13%.
The Newman nourished the cabinet with political players such as José Torello, Pablo Clusellas, Emilio Basavilbaso, Luis "Toto" Caputo, Jorge Triaca, and Alfonso Prat Gay. Nicolás "Nicky" Caputo, dear friend to the president, also studied in that exclusive institution.