Cristina Kirchner or Alberto Fernandez? : who is victim and guilty of the unprecedented loss of control of the Senate

At first glance, the decision of four senators who are members of the Frente de Todos to form an independent bloc with a Peronist dissident seemed to have as victim and culprit Cristina Kirchner oh Alberto Fernandez, alternatively. But a careful reading of this decision with high impact and historic consequences – that the PJ loses control of the Upper House for the first time – can leave other thoughts as unexpected as disturbing.

“Staying in the neighborhood was getting more and more expensive every day. In our provinces there is a lot of anger against the government, which belongs to Alberto and Cristina. But neither are we naive and no one eats glass,” he argues in dialogue with GlobeLiveMedia one of those involved in a political movement with motivations and consequences uncertain at this time.

The decision to Guillermo Snopek (Jujuy), Maria Eugenia Catalfamo (San Luis), Charles”Not” spinola (currents) and Edgardo Kueider (Entre Ríos) to establish Federal Unity with the schiaretistas Alejandra Vigo (Córdoba) initially seemed to show a new sign of weakness in Cristina Kirchen and powerlessness to exert a leadership tarnished by the detainees vis-à-vis the president. But this version began to fade over the hours.

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It happened like the national table meeting at PJ headquarters, that the first watered-down version was a peaceful meeting of budding unity in the face of elections and then it turned out to be an open attack by the hard Kirchnerism against the president to deactivate, the same evening, his candidacy for re-election.

This open-air movement of the PJ in the Senate is not disconnected from this broader context: an economic crisis, little chance of victory in the next presidential elections and, above all, the absence of an undisputed candidate with a chance of hit. This is compounded by Cristina Kirchner’s announcement that she “wasn’t going to be a candidate for anything” after receiving a six-year prison sentence and life disqualification for corruption in public works in Santa Cruz . And the precision, 21 days later, that he was in fact the victim of a “proscription” orchestrated by Justice and the concentrated powers. Meanwhile, Alberto Fernández has in most polls an intention to vote between minimal and low.

According to the testimonies and confirmations that have emerged from Peronism, two rulers have had a strong influence in the conformation of the new space, who, each in their field, have their own reasons for repudiating “the crack”. This is Cordoba Juan Schiarettipre-candidate of non-K Peronism and market friendlyand the puntano Alberto Rodriguez Saa, who is not registered for the presidential election, but has a confrontation with his brother Adolfo, who wants to return to the governorship of San Luis and has been able to cultivate a close relationship with the Vice President of the Nation. Other Peronist caciques orbit in this same universe, such as Omar Perotti (Santa Fe), Gustave Bordet (Entre Ríos) and sometimes yes and others not so much, Sergio Unac (Saint Jean).

Is this the beginning of a diaspora of Peronism towards another leadership? Not so much and not so little. In fact, Bordet attempted a sort of fucking light a Kueider.

Both in public and in private, the five Federal Unity senators made it clear that the formation of a new Peronist bloc, different from the National and Popular Front (19 seats) and the Citizen’s Unit (12 seats) which made up the Frente de Todos was due more to issues related to unresolved lawsuits and claims by the government and, secondly, to “jumping the crack”.

But in reserve and off the microphones, the other specific questions which motivated, perhaps with more seriousness, a rupture which made, in fact, that the vice-president did not depend on her own majority so that the Senate meets, also began to emerge. Now, was this loss in spite of herself or with her approval?

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The Senate’s official release of Snopek’s letter, in which he outlined the president’s criticisms, has led opposition observers to be wary of Peronism. “We are attentive. It is not something that with the history of jump the crack they prepared another application for us, in the style Roberto Lavagnathat they get votes from us to favor the Frente de Todos candidate, ”warned a source from Together for Change who has been using the phone since Wednesday to understand this indecipherable roll of the PJ

As explained by one of the conspirators who spoke with GlobeLiveMedia under the commitment to maintain confidentiality, both Alberto Fernandez as Cristina Kirchner They had been alerted to the growing unease over the lack of responses to complaints related to two sensitive demands for Peronism inside: fares and transport.

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“It is not possible that they charge me 3,000 pesos on the electricity or gas bill in Buenos Aires in the apartment that I rent and I have to pay a minimum of 15,000 in my house in my province. Alberto promised us that he was going to start solving it more than a year ago and he did nothing. Christina knew it too. Nobody moved”, continues the conspirator and adds, with obvious annoyance “After the mess that happened, I’m still waiting for a call.”

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“Do you mean that if you give them resources in subsidies for energy and transport, they disarm everything? GlobeLiveMedia asked.

No. There is no turning back. They voted for me to solve the problems of my province. We are on the road to elections and these issues have not been resolved and people are very angry. To stay in front of everyone is to condone crack, which has solved nothing.

– So you’re going to campaign for the gringo Schiaretti?

No. We haven’t committed to that either. The idea is to reject crack, but not to run for office. Not one from Cristina and less to Alberto’s re-election. There is time.

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With the new blocs, the ruling party finds itself with 31 senators, expanding to 34 with the three allies of Misiones, Río Negro and La Rioja, while the opposition and its allies remain at 33. The five legislators of the Federal Unity have been converted into a quorum arbiter, in a year where Congress is on track to have less activity in an election year than 2022, the one with the least productivity since democracy was restored.

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In any case, it is an impact that is more symbolic than effective, since the Congress is only working – in deputies – to subject the four judges of the Supreme Court to a controversial and unrealizable political trial, which is supported by the dissemination of cats obtained clandestinely by an illegal intervention of the private communications of Marcelo D’Alessandrono one is likely to keep the status of Minister of Security on leave for much longer.

Throughout the summer, with the exception of those refuges of explicit Kirchnerism in the lower house, Congress was unable to process a single one of the 27 bills that President Alberto Fernández sent for processing during the extraordinary sessions. He repeated with prolonged ineffectiveness what happened in 2022. And the trend is unlikely to change, at least in the short term. And without a minimum political agreement that unblocks an inexorably blocked Parliament.

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