Last Wednesday, President Alberto Fernández had breakfast at the Quinta de Olivos with the Minister of Economy, Martín Guzmán. The official wore a firm claim to his boss, just in the week of the new announcements for the second wave of Covid-19. The proposal was this: the increase in utility rates should be accelerated, like electricity.
Guzmán, who entered the government with the profile and attitude of an academic, made rapid symbiosis with the singularities and character of professional politicians. He also asked the President for the resignation of the undersecretary of Electric Power, Federico Basualdo. “I don’t want him on my team anymore”, the minister would have said, words more, words less, according to the reconstruction of that dialogue that he rebuilt Clarion based on sources from the Presidency, and from influential businessmen linked to public services. Always according to that story, the President accepted Guzmán’s two requests. There would be an increase in rates and Basualdo would resign.
Guzmán, endorsed not only by the President, but also by the Chief of Staff, Santiago Cafiero, ordered his subordinate Basualdo – at least on paper, not in politics – that he should leave his post.
Fernández notified the vice president of the news, Cristina Fernández, who would have endorsed the decision. At least at that time, that happened, repeat the sources consulted for this note. When the news about the change in the Ministry of Economy broke out in the media, Basualdo was convinced and in an unusual way, or not so much, resisted under the authority of the Minister of Economy and the President himself. He hasn’t quit yet. It happens that he militates in the group led by the head of the Peronist deputies, Máximo Kirchner, the son of Fernández (Cristina).
When Basualdo informed the organization La Cámpora Guzmán had asked him to leave his post due to differences over the policy of increasing rates with his boss -at least on paper-, it was explained to him that he should not leave the Government and that he would be supported by the “campers” officials. from the vice and her son. Since Wednesday morning and at least yesterday afternoon, the government went into shock for an internal fight between the sector of the Frente de Todos led by the President, and by the powerful of La Cámpora.
Including the vice president herself, who would have gone from accepting that Basualdo leave office to insistently asking him not to leave in any way and under any pressure. The Front of All works like this: take it or leave it.
The internal crisis escalated in such a way that late on Friday afternoon, a message was exchanged between the men and women of the Cabinet that make up Máximo Kirchner’s group: “If Basualdo leaves the government, we all leave.” Never had a rise of such magnitude been experienced in the government coalition.
Federico Basualdo, former head of the ENRE and current Undersecretary of Electric Power, despite Martín Guzmán’s request to resign.
The vice went from having endorsed Basualdo’s departure to backing him to stay. Máximo Kirchner operated politically with energy and determination in the same direction.
Aware of the challenge to his decision, of the “mutiny” on the part of his management colleagues, then it was Guzmán who told the Presidency that he had tired of having to live with the constant siege of his “supposed” allies of La Cámpora : “It’s Basualdo or me. If he doesn’t go, I’ll go”, transmitted to the Quinta de Olivos as a ultimatum.
Guzman lost his tune several weeks ago with the vice president, whom he visited and heard several times regarding his plan to pay the debt with the IMF, the rate increase and the need to reapply an Emergency Family Income ( IFE) to help the fallen of the labor system in the confinement of the pandemic.
He listened, but did not act on it. The “Basualdo crisis” is now added to that scenario. The government shock over this conflict continues.
The Casa Rosada lets it transpire now that Basualdo will leave his position but not in the short term, because their displacement was leaked to the media before they reached an internal consensus on power, or at least their departure became effective.
The phones of the officials of La Cámpora and the Minister of Economy are on fire. Basualdo is still there. Guzmán too.
The Minister of Economy complains, in a less and less discreet way, of the annoyance he feels about the political and managerial siege that he would suffer, according to him, from La Cámpora.
It so happens that militants of that group were appointed in the key areas of the State that depend on the Economy and that define the national energy policy. The secretary of the area is Kirchner’s friend (Máximo), Darío Martínez.
The state oil company YPF was chaired by another leader who comes from the same and evident “talent pool” which is La Cámpora (this description of group K belongs to one of the most experienced “albertists” who are in power, although without charge).
The fight that sparked Guzmán’s request for resignation is based, as stated, on the minister’s belief in the importance of lower billionaire spending on utility subsidies allowing customers to raise their rates at least twice this year. The Kirchners do not accept that plan.
They consider that allowing the increase of light in more than a percentage digit to users, in 2021, election year, it would harm the chances of victory in the elections of the ruling party before voters exhausted by the economic crisis, the pandemic, the lack of future financial certainty, to which more pressure would be added to their expenses if the electricity went up in two sections in the what remains of the year. Guzmán insists on ignoring plan K for rates.
According to the sources consulted by Clarion, the Minister of Economy told the President during his breakfast on Wednesday that the Undersecretary of Electric Energy never gave him a plan for the increase in electricity rates to follow a “segmentation” so that this increase is consistent with the sectors of society that could pay more than others according to a higher income level.
The Ministry of Energy does have, however, a prepared segmentation that could be applied as Guzmán imagines, but that would be stopped five months ago.
The Secretary of Energy Darío Martínez with Alberto Fernández.
Due to this internal dispute with an open ending, the Government officially announced a 9 percent increase in the cost of electric power. For La Cámpora, it will be the only increase in that public service that will be applied this year. For Guzmán, no, it would be only the first increase that would include at least one more.
The fight between The Cámpora-Máximo-Cristina against the Casa Rosada It came to produce even more symbolic reactions than the limbo in which the Republic’s energy policy finds itself, subordinated to a power struggle between two fractions of the ruling party.
When it emerged in the media that Guzmán had asked Basualdo to resign, from the press offices of La Cámpora a message was transmitted to journalists that denied the Casa Rosada itself and even anticipated the government measure of the 9 percent increase in the light.
The text, endorsed by Máximo Kirchner, is something like a press release but “clandestine”: “There was never a request to resign Federico Basualdo”, the text begins, contradicting what the Presidency said, and even announces the increase in the electricity rate but erring by one digitor; “There will be a ONLY 8% increase. The version of the second increase is false”, he insists, including textual statements from Basualdo, and even comparing Guzmán’s plan with Cambiemos’s.
A national minister admitted this week of shock at Clarion, downplayed it but according to his analysis the situation could be more serious: “Guzmán may be forcing this fight because he got tired of the interns of Cristina and La Cámpora and decided it was time to resign“.
In the Casa Rosada and the Ministry of Economy they reject this extreme version. But the minister hopes that the departure of Basualdo will be made official to stop repeating that if the undersecretary of Electric Power does not leave, he could leave.
An example of how Guzmán decided to deal with the different leaders of the Frente de Todos: the long day in which the Chamber of Deputies voted to modify the Income Tax, the minister had a meeting alone with the president of the Lower House, Sergio Massa, and with the empowered Máximo Kirchner. Knowing a certain rebellion of Guzmán regarding how he imagines the economy of 2021, Kirchner and Massa explained to him what is the concept that he would have to take into account: “You have to have a little more political gaze, Martín.”
Guzmán began to handle himself more firmly in his management beliefs than in the tactics of the leaders of the Frente de Todos who are not the President of the Republic, to whom he responds loyally and considers his true boss.
The meaning of the name “Martin” is linked to “Mars”. Mars, for Latinos, was the God of War.
.
#days #shock #Martín #Guzmán #Cámpora
source https://pledgetimes.com/four-days-of-shock-between-martin-guzman-and-la-campora/
Disqus comments