Three central controversies of Sergio Massa’s campaign for the Presidency of Argentina

The results of managing complicated Argentine accounts a year after assuming the Ministry of Economy, his comings and goings with Kirchnerism over the years and some enemies with Juan Grabois the other pre-candidate for the presidency by the ruling coalition, are some of the controversies surrounding the candidacy of Sergio Massa for the presidency of Argentina.

There is one day left for him to try to win over voters who are disenchanted with the government and Massa knows that he still hasn’t finished putting the country’s complicated economy, marked by high inflation and a lack of dollars, on track.

Economy

Inflation, which, although it seems to have started to moderate timidly, remains high: in June it was 6%, the same percentage as in January and the lowest of the year, although it has already accumulated 50.7% so far in 2023 and the year-to-year variation year is 115.6%.

The next index will be known two days after the primaries (PASO), but for August increases have already been confirmed in public transport, electricity, fuel, medicine, private schools and telecommunications, among others.

The other issue of the economy that puts pressure on is reserves, and then the relationship with the IMF is another of the complicated points that the government supporter must face.

If, on the one hand, the organization generates disagreements in part of Kirchnerism, while Kirchnerism feels uncomfortable negotiating economic goals with that organization in exchange for funding, the other candidate of the Union for the Homeland (UxP) Juan Grabois, spares no criticism of any agreement with the Fund or against Massa, and from the left considers him “a candidate who proposes a shift to the right from a conceptual, macroeconomic point of view, in relation to the Judiciary and business groups”.

Dislikes with Grabois

Massa did not respond to Grabois’ criticism, but his wife, a government official and pre-candidate for mayor of Tigre, and his brother-in-law did. Malena Galmarini considered that voting for Grabois is “throwing the vote away”, while her brother, Sebastián, director of the Bank of the Province of Buenos Aires, responded to Grabois’s tweet, saying:

“Many of us no longer have any doubts that you work so that Together for Change wins. You are within your rights, but everyone has to know that. You have no chance of winning: not even in the PASO, much less in the general elections. Know that voting for him is giving you the chance to return to macrism”.

Muchos already do not have doubts that you work for you to win @juntoscambioar
You are right, but everyone has to know.
No one has a chance of winning: neither the PASÓ, nor mucho less the general election.
If you vote for him, you give him the chance to return to macrism.#SinVueltas https://t.co/huG1OL7P3d

— Sebastian Galmarini (@SebasGalmarini) July 25, 2023

Comings and goings with Kirchnerism

Another of the controversies surrounding the government candidate is the change in his relationship with Kirchnerism. Many keep reminding him of his origins far from the right, after his first steps in politics in Álvaro Alsogaray’s União do Centro Democrático (UCede).

In 2003, when Néstor Kirchner took office, Massa was at the head of the National Social Security Administration (Anses), the body that manages one of the main state budgets.

Under the aegis of Kirchnerism, he held various positions: he was elected director of Tigre, a city in the north of Greater Buenos Aires, and chief of staff for then-president Cristina Kirchner, and was ranked third on the list of national deputies as a “testimonial” candidate. , those who, despite being elected, had no intention of taking office but had the capacity to raise votes, as happened in your case.

In 2011, still under the aegis of kirchnerism, he would be re-elected mayor with more than 70% of the votes. But since then, the divergences with Kirchnerism have deepened until, in the 2013 elections, he ran again for deputy, but this time for his own space, the Renovadora Front, and won the candidate of the then president, Martín Insaurralde.

His break with Kirchnerism seemed to have no turning back and resulted in a presidential candidacy in 2015 as an opponent. His candidacy ended up splitting the Peronist vote and Mauricio Macri would be the winner of that presidential election in a vote against the government candidate Daniel Scioli.

“When in 2013 they wanted to impose the ‘eternal Cristina’ on us, we had the courage to stop it. If it appears again, we will prevent it again”, said Massa, in the campaign, in 2017.

But two years later, in 2019, he returned to the ranks of Kirchnerism at the hands of Alberto Fernández, the presidential candidate that Kirchner had chosen for the ticket he was on. He headed the list of national deputies for the province of Buenos Aires and ended up being the president of the Chamber.

Although in the past he had stated that he would “sweep away the gnocchi of La Cámpora” — which, according to him, was “taking control of the State” — in this new stage one of his main allies would be one of the founders of this Kirchnerist political group: Máximo Kirchner, son of vice-president, who was elected president of the governing group of Deputies.

His first public appearance, after confirming his presidential candidacy, was in an act with the current vice president.

However, Massa tries to maintain a delicate balance. On the one hand, in the province of Buenos Aires, the main electoral district of the country, he appears together with the governor Axel Kicillof and the minister of the Interior, Wado de Pedro, trying to retain the votes of the hardest kirchnerism. He was full of praise for Máximo Kirchner, one of the most critical of the agreements with the IMF.

These days he also travels the country, mainly the provinces where Peronism did not do well. There he will try to expand to a wider constituency. Last week he visited Mendoza and San Luis, where he met with local businessmen, producers and entrepreneurs.

These visits will be repeated in other provinces in the next few days, where the minister and candidate will try to collect as many votes as possible. And it appeals to that by maintaining that delicate balance between Kirchnerism and more classic Peronism.

Although for the Open Simultaneous and Obligatory Primaries (PASO) of August 13 it is unlikely that the official coalition, Unión por la Patria (UxP), will be the space that obtains the highest number of votes, the Peronist bet is that Massa will be the candidate most voted. Will he make it?

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