The opposition experienced the previous Christmas intensely, with the head of the Buenos Aires government Horacio Rodriguez Larreta that intends to remain at the center of the scene after the ruling of the Supreme Court that ordered the restitution of funds to the City of Buenos Aires, the return of Mauricio Macri after the full month he spent in Qatar and the radicals who cannot agree on how to define their candidacies.
The decision by which the Supreme Court arranged for the Nation to transfer to CABA 2.95 percent of co-participating taxes it deepened the existing tension between the jurisdictions and, according to the view of some governors, it updated the centralism/federalism dichotomy: hours after knowing the ruling of the highest court, 14 provinces accompanied the reply of the national State.
The conflict began in the first months of 2016, when the then president Mauricio Macri increased by decree to 3.75% the coefficient of co-participation destined to the Autonomous City with the argument that the Buenos Aires district had to take charge of the transfer of a part the structure of the Federal Police; this percentage was later reduced to 3.5% when a Fiscal Pact was signed.
For the management of the Frente de Todos, Macri took advantage of the transfer process of the Federal Police to increase excessively and without justification the co-participation percentage reserved for CABA, which resulted in the fact that two years ago -and in the midst of a tough conflict in the Buenos Aires Police– What Macri had raised was reduced by decree in the same way: President Alberto Fernández, then, lowered the coefficient for the City to 2.32%.
Larreta, as a reaction, appeared before the Court to claim that the City had lost fundsand that -in the internal interpretation of the opposition coalition- gave it an unexpected prominence in the internal Juntos por el Cambio that found its key moment with the precautionary measure that the four judges of the court signed three days ago: Horacio Rosatti, Ricardo Lorenzetti, Juan Carlos Maqueda and Carlos Rosenkrantz.
“Horacio was received from a falcon”commented in a low voice some JxC referents, regarding the internal sectors that indicated that Larreta was not tough enough against the national government.
Accusing the Executive Power of having broken the institutional order put Larreta in a place previously reserved only for Macri or Patricia Bullrich.
Macri, meanwhile, he returned from Qatar, where he witnessed Argentina’s triumph as head of the FIFA foundation, and quickly got into domestic politics. FI went to play a “picadito” of soccer at La Matanza and then he traveled to the Cumelén country, in Villa La Angostura, where he will spend his vacations.
Sources close to the former president told this agency that Macri will have a “hyperactive” summer. In the next few days he will receive Larreta in his Patagonian refuge in Villa La Angostura, at a summit from which definitions regarding candidacies and strategies for the upcoming election year are expected.
After more than a month in Qatar, Mauricio Macri has already traveled to Villa La Angostura to spend his vacations.
Macri, however, keep playing mystery until the last minute regarding his own application and for the moment he will not define anything, except in a single district, the City, where he has already blessed his cousin Jorge as Larreta’s successor.
The former president will mix his stay in the south of the country with tours throughout the country during January and February, as will Larreta and Bullrich.
The UCR is also preparing for 2023
Another of the legs of the coalition, radicalism, also lived a week with a lot of internal thread. The national deputy and neurologist Facundo Manes did not want to bow to the proposal of the party headline, Gerardo Moralesto go to an open internship in the month of March to define which of the two should be the presidential candidate of space.
Morales had imagined an internal one where both radical affiliates and citizens who were not affiliated with other political parties could vote. Manes refused the invitation: He did not participate in a meeting that Morales himself had called last Tuesday to discuss the issue.
The two main radical candidates will continue on their way campaigning and, unless they reach a prior agreement, they are on their way to face each other in the PASO.
On March 31, meanwhile, radicalism will hold a summit in Córdoba, to agree on government programs.
Close to Morales they do not understand Manes’ attitude: they say that the neurologist had first threatened to participate but then backed down, in a strategy that would also have the endorsement of other radicals, such as the governor of Corrientes Gustavo Valdés and the senator from Mendoza Alfredo Cornejo.
