Almost as if it were a show cut off from the regular start of sessions of the Congress, The entire political arc was waiting for what the reception of Cristina Kirchner to Alberto Fernandezafter nine months of not appearing together publicly.
The greeting was cold, almost as cold as the reception that deputies, senators and other political and judicial leaders gave to the President when entering the premises of the lower house. But the gesture that went viral the most occurred before the speech began: Alberto Fernandez He raised a bottle of water, attributed it and stretched it out to deliver to the vice. With his hand raised he rejected her offer and at her insistence he reproached her: “Leave it there.”
It was a kind of painting that anticipated what would happen next: the President trying to seduce his vice president with fierce criticism of the Court, the City of Buenos Aires and the opposition in general. Cristina, meanwhile, without gestures or expressions. Listening to a nondescript speech. The internal crack in the maximum expression of her.
Persuasion plan. Alberto Fernández played one last card in his attempt to be accepted by Kirchnerism as a candidate for re-election. That is why he applied, from beginning to end, the manual of The Campore: He demanded that the Judiciary “promptly” investigate the assassination attempt on Cristina, spoke of the “political disqualification” of the vice for her conviction in the Roads case and protested the return of the co-participation to the City of Buenos Aires. “The Court takes money from those who need it the most and allocates those same resources to the most opulent city in the country,” he crossed them.
But there was no case: in the two hours of speech, Cristina did not look at her running mate, did not make any gesture of approval and did not even applaud any of his paragraphs. She noted the bad relationship between the two.
Another gesture that shows the few bridges that unite the President with Kirchnerism was the absence of Maximum. The vice president’s son, who at that time showed up at a retirement center in La Matanza, was the only deputy who was absent at the start of ordinary sessions. It is the third time in a row that he has left his bench empty.
Lá Cámpora was represented by its possible presidential candidate, Eduardo “Wado” de Pedro, who followed the speech by drinking mates in the venue. The Interior Minister avoided making public statements as soon as the ceremony ended. It’s just that Alberto had been shaken enough from his corner.
Hours before the start of sessions, andres larroque He strongly reproached him: “The President did not get there by his own votes. He is biting the hand of the one who fed him, ”said“ El Cuervo ”in an interview on AM 750. And he ended:“ He came to that place as part of an agreement with Kirchnerism that was not fully honored ” .
As often happens, it was the official spokesman who picked up the glove and came out in defense of Alberto. “If you are part of a government, you cannot be so in disagreement with what the President does, because otherwise you would have left,” he reproached them. Gabriela Cerrutti.
The President’s persuasion plan observed an important detail. It is that they did not exactly get the last proclamation K: among the 2,500 words that they took, there was not “proscription”, not once. “I speak of political disqualification. It’s the same ”, he was benched by his new chief of staff, Augustine Rossi.
Without energy. Little did the center of the scene appear to the President. On the afternoon of March 1, a fire in Campana used the service exit of the Atucha I nuclear power plant and a large part of the country was left without electricity. Meanwhile, on the Twitter account of Alberto Fernandez excerpts from his midday speech were played. And one of those messages aroused the fury of hundreds of people: “Today we live substantially better,” he published at 5:30 p.m., when some six million homes remained without electricity. The anger is evident in dozens of responses.
The President’s participation will present more criticism than support. Beyond the fact that the opposition was waiting for the speech to go out and cross it vehemently, his words gave rise to dozens of comments.
For starters, legislators Together for Change of CABA was lifted when the President protested the resolution of the Court in the case for co-participation. Then it was the turn of the santafesinos to withdraw, when he heard how Alberto delegated the responsibility of the narco outpost in Rosario to the highest court of Justice. Even Graciela Camaño and Javier Milei chose to jump off the bench early and not listen to the end of the speech.
Other opponents appealed to draw attention to the point of ridicule: Fernando Iglesias He turned to face the podium from where Alberto was speaking. And then she tried to interrupt him by yelling at him. At times the lower house compound resembled a football stadium.
In fact, the President’s speech ended with a pitch song, full of irony. “Boromombón, borombombón, for Fernández the re-election”, he was heard. They were not official voices. They were the legislators of Together for Change, amused by the friendly fire that spreads in the Front of All.
But the strongest dispute that Alberto threw was against the Court. Seated facing the amphitheater, just a few meters from the President, Horacio Rosatti and Carlos Rosenkrantz Listen to the fierce criticism of the president. While he reproached them that they had been chosen by decree and repudiated his actions, he pointed at them with his index finger. They couldn’t see his attitude because they kept their head straight towards the public. After the closing of the act, they commented surprised the virulence of the attack received. Fernández gave everything in his last attempt to win Cristina back.
No margin. Until this March 1, Cristina Kirchner had minimally taken care of the forms in public. She had never, until now, ignored the President in the way she did since Alberto Fernández entered and until she differed from Congress.
The President noticed the loneliness even on the way to the legislative palace. Where thousands of protesters used to congregate this time there were only a few groups of people. The Cámpora did not mobilize, but neither did the social movements or the CGT.
The unions, which had been one of the few sticks on which Alberto leaned, distanced himself. They barely sent a brief entourage, headed by Hector Daer and Carlos Acuna. Hugo was in another box, representing the Moyanos. Nothing else. The organizations sent a brief delegation to the Plaza del Congreso: Barrios de Pie, the Evita Movement and the UTEP wanted to show that they did not remove the body from the Front of All, but that they do not agree with Alberto’s electoral adventure.
In the half-empty square, the first posters announcing the President’s candidacy stood out: they are signed by “space A23” and their slogan indicates “For everything we did and for what remains to be done”. The image is of the President beating his chest, at the level of his heart.
With the countdown to the end of the term, Alberto Fernandez He begins to be alone. The opposition corners him with criticism of him and Kirchnerism does not defend him. He unsuccessfully tried to ingratiate himself with Cristina whenever he could, sometimes to the point of ridicule. He will have to continue withstanding the pressure to preserve his re-election hopes and not become a lame duck in the last months of his administration.
