We need to talk about Mauricio Macri - the dilemma facing Argentina's opposition
OPINION AND ANALYSIS | 15-04-2022 12:03
Some in Juntos por el Cambio want the former president to step aside, though all the coalition’s key leaders recognise they will need him for the 2023 election. The former president has reached a peace accord with Horacio Rodríguez Larreta but it’s daggers drawn with Gerardo Morales – what is Mauricio Macri’s place in the grand scheme of things?
Carlos Claá
CARLOS CLAÁ
Periodista político
JUNTOS POR EL CAMBIO: HORACIO RODRÍGUEZ LARRETA AND MAURICIO MACRI. | ART BY JOAQUIN TEMES
More than one Juntos por el Cambio leader was taken by surprise. The former president, in person, was trying to convince some in the opposition that they should not support the government’s debt agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), arguing that qualified opinions had been informing him that the negotiations were disappointing and assuring that if everything came to grief, Kirchnerism would place them in the role of accomplices.
“They’re going to screw us and blame me,” Mauricio Macri told them. Despite a potential default, which was just around the corner, the former president was not yielding to the pleas of his Radical and Civic Coalition allies not to complicate the life of Alberto Fernández any further.
Macri’s vision changed on March 9, when the lower house Chamber of Deputies succeeded in reducing the IMF bill to a single article permitting the government to refinance its debt repayments without endorsing the political programme in the annex of the initial draft. Via a Zoom call, in which the main figures of the opposition participated, Macri finally called for concord. “We must accompany it,” he ruled.
The political whirlwind that followed made the former president’s initial reaction pass almost unnoticed, but among the many leaders of Juntos por el Cambio a dilemma was refloated, one which has been lurking since December 10, 2019: What is Macri’s place in the scheme of things?
More:
https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/opinion-and-analysis/we-need-to-talk-about-mauricio-macri-the-dilemma-facing-argentinas-opposition.phtml