The era of acceleration: negotiations and secret agreements between Cristina Kirchner, Sergio Massa and Alberto Fernández – Up Jobs News

Only personal panic explains the inexplicable. Cristina Kirchner It generated a political crisis at the beginning of the year when the official coalition in Congress broke up in rejection of the agreement with the IMF. Six months later he made a claim for the fiscal deficit in an act in Avellaneda and eroded Martin Guzman until you get your resignation. Now, Cristina Kirchner endorses the arrival at the Ministry of Economy of Serge Massa, one of the main negotiators with the IMF, which, in order to avoid descent into economic hell, proposes to eliminate the public deficit, maintain the agreement with the Fund and increase tariffs through a reduction in subsidies. In just half a year, Kirchnerism drew a curve that left it in the place it repudiated. But with news: since then, the financial situation deteriorated deeply because of the gap that opened between the values ​​of the dollar and because of the loss of reserves and a weakening of the Central Bank. That looming disaster aroused fear at the top of the Frente de Todos, which accelerated the arrival of Massa and the attempt to prevent the fall with measures that Kirchnerism abhorred. A perfect circle, where the horror led them to run away with stomps on the story. But the difficulties in integrating the economic team and the tenacity shown by the crisis after the announcements echo the question: Did the reaction arrive on time or is it too late?

In the privacy of his presidential cubicle, Alberto Fernandez He felt Thursday that he had a little personal vindication as he went through the Twitter messages. It was when she read a user who had written: “I am glad that Massa wants to reduce the deficit, emit little and not subsidize rates, not as batakis who wanted to reduce the deficit, emit little and not subsidize tariffs, much less as Guzman, who wanted to reduce the deficit, emit little and not subsidize tariffs”. The message was celebrated around him as a show of resistance, as the signal that the dissidents finally have to accept the course. There were also exclamations when they saw the fielder’s tweet Andres “The Raven” Larroque, which expressed: “Strength partner Sergio Massa”, after the brand new Minister of Economy had anticipated an adjustment. “This one pissed us off for the agreement with the Fund”, stressed a presidential collaborator. Punished by the readings that indicate his political devaluation, Alberto Fernández responds to his interlocutors with a conclusion: Cristina Kirchner and Sergio Massa can no longer ignore the crisis. They are in. “I share Sergio’s economic view, which is not the same view as Cristina,” Fernandez repeats these days. And he remembers the electoral history shared with the Minister of Economy, when they faced the current vice president. In the presidential intimacy they also feel like a triumph to have prevented in the last days of negotiation that the man from Chaco Jorge Captainich disembark as chief of staff, as Cristina Kirchner intended, and that Massa resign secretaries and his landing in the Ministry of Tourism be blocked. They also claim resistance to the request for more Albertista heads to be shot, as they intended in the Homeland Institute, with names and surnames. There was no gender difference there.

The President builds his own weather resilience. “In the world they read that the moderate branch of the Frente de Todos gained ground in the Government,” Fernández celebrated after receiving messages from abroad. Faced with the cruelty of the crisis, the protagonists cling to small caresses, to secret victories.

The negotiations between Cristina Kirchner, Fernández and Massa to incorporate the latter into the government had begun months ago and included talks both in Argentina and abroad. Some even date back to last summer. No one had the courtesy to notify Silvina Batakis that his appointment was just a play to buy time until they agreed. Along the way, Fernández resigned his intention to appoint Massa chief of staff, as intended, to move to John Manzur to the Ministry of the Interior and Eduardo “Wado” de Pedro to Justice.

Outside, meanwhile, the crisis is undaunted by the choreography displayed by Massa and the renovating euphoria that was celebrated at the Bicentennial Museum. The Central Bank feverishly tried to curb demand for dollars after the announcements, but lost $700 million in a week. Shopping doesn’t stop. In the conversations prior to his landing, Massa looked at two alternatives: one was devaluation; the other, a nominal adjustment of public spending. He chose the second path. To carry it forward, Massa offered the vice-chief of Economy to Daniel Rubsteina promoter of the elimination of the deficit, who publicly expressed that Cristina Kirchner “does not understand” the situation, supported the idea of Joseph Louis Espert to close Aerolineas Argentinas and retweeted a message wondering if La Rosadita’s black money was also “unexpected income.” Now Rubistein has been asked to wait until Tuesday for the outcome.

Before, Massa faced other refusals to join the economic team. They did not reach the hours of conversation with Marina Dal Poggetto, the reference of the EcoGo consultancy, to integrate it into the Government. Nor the barbecue that she improvised at her house in Tigre, in May, when she saw her time coming. There they were, among other diners, Martin Redrado Y Miguel Peirano. None were ultimately part of the team. One of the two told a collaborator that he was impressed by the lack of a plan.

The new economy minister has to his advantage an immeasurable confidence in his own abilities. Even to reverse what seems inexorable. In federal justice, Massa is attributed with efforts behind the dismissal of Cristina Kirchner in the case for the operations of the sale of the future dollar between August and November 2015. The vice president was heard expressing praise behind closed doors for the word kept by Massa . The witness to that statement was unable to confirm whether Cristina Kirchner’s flattery was directly related to the judicial disturbances. But Massa weaved the reconstruction of the bond with the vice president through promises kept in secret. It is, curiously, a virtue that others ignore in the new minister.

It is significant how the dollar, future and present, returns like an elusive talisman. The complaint that ended in the dismissal of Cristina Kirchner It had been presented precisely because of the unfavorable management of the Central Bank during the second term of the current vice president to stop the rise of the currency in an election year. Millions of reserves were lost back then by selling dollar futures too cheaply. The gap between the official and the financiers was 45% in 2015. Now the gap amounts to 120%. And Massa rehearses incentives to advance the liquidation of exports and heal the hemorrhage of reserves.

The Minister of Economy deployed calls and negotiations in search of dollars. A line of contacts reached the bottom of franklin templetonwhich manages Michael Hasenstab, who, despite the Scandinavian reminiscences of his last name, was born in Olympia, Washington. They are not easy transactions. Templeton lost millions in Argentina with a fixed-rate bond that he put together louis caputo in the government of Mauricio Macri. On Thursday, the financial dollars climbed without pause and in the world of finances glimpsed the hand of Templeton getting rid of Argentine debt. Indeed, it is not just about getting dollars from exporters, but about stopping the stampede and the purchase of foreign currency. Otherwise, the revolving door of the Argentine crisis can harvest on one side and bleed to death on the other. That is motivated precisely by the exchange rate gap. For this reason, Massa was approached the idea of ​​devaluation. For now he rejects her.

The minister is not lacking in audacity, be it financially or judicially. But there are complex tasks. It is difficult, for example, for his ancestry to be projected in the future of the oral trial for corruption in public works in Santa Cruz. They are not the same interlocutors as in the cause for the future dollar and the weight of the accusation is brutally different. The wasteful sale of future dollars was a ruinous economic policy. But delivering public works to a figurehead and then recovering the black money through contracts in family hotels is a crime. Cristina Kirchner accepted Massa’s landing on the condition of stabilizing the economy and avoiding collapse. In Kirchnerism there are those who believe that her permanence should also have a judicial correlation that favors the vice president. The message of “companion strength” of the Raven Larroque can have multiple interpretations. But even Massa’s unassailable audacity is dwarfed by such a challenge.