In Argentina the transition is already underway
Marcos Peña remains Chief of Staff. There was no recognition of the enormous political failure that not only sank Mauricio Macri's chances of re-election but also put the political coalition that led him to power in the brink of disintegration.
The defeat has been so widespread that it is easier to count the areas that the PRO might still retain after the election than to enumerate those that it will likely lose. And they are very few and not warranted: the City of Buenos Aires, Vicente López, Olavarría and a shortlist that awaits the "miracle" of October.
This situation happens inside a party that grew from power and does not have the experience of resistance that tempered forces such as Radicalism and Peronism have. It raises questions about the fiber that the macristas will have to show to endure from the Peronist hegemony that insinuates in The horizon.
The kamikaze bet to an all-or-nothing polarization fantasy is likely to end in one of the most uneven elections in recent memory, if the data that is transcending the final scrutiny, that brings Alberto Fernández closer to 49 percent of the votes, is confirmed. What an achievement.
This Saturday, Macri again ran behind the results. In his coalition, but also in sectors of society that accompanied him, they believe that if a final change had to be made, it should begin with the departure of the man who led him to this situation. But as in the failed cabinet change of September 2018, the idea of ??removing Marcos Peña paralyzed his decision.
The logic of expelling allies, in a quest for absolute control, lacks political sense, it feeds on phony polls and obstructs the internal debate; it is the logic that fuels the recent economic measures package, the idea that you can still win, that fifteen points are nothing. Because the important thing is not the programmatic sign -of adjustment to the warm promotion of demand-, but the overvaluation of one's ability to manipulate others.
It is the logic that leads to the simulation of negotiation, of asking for help in the face of the peso's fall, while setting in private measures that drain the resources of those who are asked to "think about the country", that is, in the Government.
[Tension grows in Argentina with the IMF in the face of non-fulfillment of payments]
It is that neurosis that took them down, that built this desolate landscape that is the PRO today, the political force that was supposed to modernize Argentina with a triple foundational victory.
The Minister of the Treasury Nicolás Dujovne left, nobody threw him out. Because the only change that makes sense cannot be made.Because there is a forbidden zone in power, which escapes rewards and punishments, results, politics and ultimately, even the logic of power, which embraces a fire that consumes it. It's a mystery.
Dujovne leaves because he knows that the Government is going to say goodbye to the last symbolic capital he had left, the search for fiscal balance. Macri is going to end his term with inflation close to three times what he received, with an external debt multiplied by four, unemployment on the double digits, a falling GDP, more poverty, less investment, and with a ballasted purchasing power. And now with unfulfilled fiscal goals and an agreement with the IMF in crisis.
It is an economic failure without any mitigating factors. But the country will still need an opposition party after the election. This should be a very different time. A time to put the pieces together, a sensible transition, to return to everything that was lost along the way: politics, openness, simplicity. And in that sense, perhaps the arrival of Hernán Lacunza to Ministry of the Treasure offers one last chance, if in the narrow margin of maneuver he accepted, he manages to impose in tandem with Rogelio Frigerio the logic of dialogue in Buenos Aires politics.
Because it has come the time to decompress. And you don't need to be a diver to understand what happens to those who skip the safety stops.