Argentine elections: Macri drops VP Gabriela Michetti from ticket
Argentine President Mauricio Macri announced today that Vice President Gabriela Michetti will not be on his right-wing "Let's Change" coalition's 2019 ticket.
Macri picked Senator Miguel Ángel Pichetto as his running mate instead - a surprise choice to most local political analysts.
Pichetto, 68, is the current Senate Minority Leader and had headed the opposition Justicialist Party (PJ) caucus since 2002.
A staunch ally of Macri's most visible opponent, former President Cristina Kirchner, during her 2007-15 tenure, Pichetto has lurched steadily to the right since Macri was narrowly elected in late 2015.
His hard-line stance on immigration and crime, as well as his frequent diatribes on the ongoing Venezuelan crisis (an issue of little interest to most Argentine voters), have led critics to brand him as the "Argentine Bolsonaro" - in reference to Brazil's neo-fascist President Jair Bolsonaro.
Pichetto had sought his party's nomination for this year's election but had seldom polled above 1%. He endorsed Macri on June 4, and following today's announcement resigned his post as PJ caucus leader.
Running on empty
Michetti's replacement was widely expected: She faces charges over alleged campaign money laundering through her right-wing think tank SUMA, and her gruff manner and ineptitude while presiding the senate has eroded her image.
Most, however, believed Macri would tap someone from the junior partners in his 'Let's Change' coalition, the centrist UCR - on whose votes Macri won in 2015; but who since have largely been ignored.
Macri had instead reportedly first offered the slot to Salta Province Governor Juan Manuel Urtubey - the de facto head of the PJ's minority right-wing faction; Urtubey refused.
The move comes as Macri's re-election chances have faded in the face of a sharp recession, the highest inflation in 27 years, and the Extortiongate scandal - involving Macri's alleged use of Argentina Federal Intelligence to both frame opponents and extract ransom payments.
Inflation in April hit 56%, among the highest in the world, while the economy shrank 6.2% in March from the same time last year.
Since the recession began following the collapse of Macri's 2016-17 carry-trade debt bubble, some 296,000 registered jobs have been lost as of March - equivalent to 2.2 million jobs lost in the U.S.
Recent polls show Macri losing to center-left PJ candidate Alberto Fernández, with Mrs. Kirchner as his running mate, by 13%.
"Macri today has over 100 criminal complaints against him," Pichetto himself had said in February. "When his term ends, he'll go straight to federal court."
At: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&tab=wT&sl=es&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pagina12.com.ar%2F199692-pichetto-vice-de-macri
President Mauricio Macri (right), and his new running mate, right-wing Senator Miguel Ángel Pichetto.
While Macri's decision to drop the gruff, unpopular Michetti was not unexpected, his refusal to pick someone from the UCR - the long-ignored junior partners in his "Let's Change" coalition - has further strained relations with UCR leaders and voters.
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and a disappearing economy, and his own candidate for the vice-presidency asserts Macri is headed for the slammer as soon as he leaves office!
Cool! The sooner, the better. Argentina needs to go to the hospital. Macri was able to do in only 3 years what would have taken a decade or more of extraordinarily bad luck to do to his native land.
It's amazing to see what Pichetto actually said about Macri, considering he wants him as his VP. Looks as if he's totally desperate.
Of course, everyone will really miss Gabriella Michetti!
The news about his new running mate is strangely humorous. Oh, yes, I forgot to ask: won't losing the UCR support cut into the votes he needs for the election?
Thank you for this article, sandensea.
And yes, Judi, absolutely. This will only further erode his support from UCR voters, which are around a third of the electorate.
A sizable faction within the UCR are already likely to vote for Roberto Lavagna as it is, and the Pichetto pick will only add to their ranks.
You know, the only thing still keeping many UCR voters in the "Let's Change" fold, is their intense hatred of Peronists - which, in turn, is about the only thing they have in common with the neo-con Macri.
Macri has long governed under the assumption that this shared hatred would allow him the UCR to be used as a kind of coolie, stoically taking him wherever he needed to go for next-to-nothing in return - and with their mouths shut.
And frankly, they've proven Macri right - placating his every whim, and suffering in silence as Macri ignored them more and more.
But this might the final straw for many UCR voters, even if the leadership still goes along. Their support for Lavagna will now intensify, and I wouldn't be surprised if Macri now ends up in 3rd place (behind Beto Fernández and Lavagna).
You know, If I didn't know better I'd almost say Macri is deliberately trying to guarantee he'll lose.
But then, and as anyone could've told him, his adopting Bushonomics already did that for him.
"Not in front of reporters, Ernesto": Former UCR leader Ernesto Sanz gives Macri a reassuring pat during the 2015 campaign.
Sanz was one of the architects of the "Let's Change" coalition, which joined the centrist UCR with the hard-right (and much smaller) PRO in what was meant to be a "merger of equals." Macri narrowly won mostly on the backs of UCR votes.
But in practice, Macri's PRO monopolized nearly all power once he took office, relegating the UCR (Argentina's oldest and 2nd-most popular party) to little more than a congressional rubber stamp.
