A carambola of fate will make it possible for the two central protagonists of the dysfunctional family of Together for Change to cross paths on the same stage in the next few hours. Behind the breaking off with the PRO of the Buenos Aires mayor, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, and Mauricio Macri’s criticism of the unfolding of the elections in the City, both should be seen this Wednesday at the Rural de Palermo property. But, as few times in their history, political father and son will seek to dribble, perhaps using the alternative income that one gives to Oro Street and the other to Sarmiento.
Another twist of fate is that they will be in two separate events but in the same place -meetings set up by two business entities- one of which is banking the former president almost alone and the other has serious doubts not only about his abilities in power, but believes, like almost the entirety of the Red Circle, that Macri is the main cause of the rupture of Larreta, who until now had been the beloved son of economic power. A combo that could, according to the ceos, alter the scheme of chances of the opposition before an officialism that was practically delivered to a defeat. And what is stronger: it would advance a substantive dispute between cadres that, if it were a Government, would be a collapse of management.
A test for Macri
In La Rural the bad weather of the ceos with Macri will be tested this Wednesdaysomething that is already perceived in the WhatsApp groups of the Industrial Union, the builders, the bankers and the multi-sectoral groups of great establishment priests, such as the Argentine Business Association (AEA). Macri will be at lunch, in the dining room of the Palermo property, organized by the Council of Commerce and Production (CICYP). For the first time since the entity existed, the food moved from the Hotel Alvear to the Rural, forced by the lobby of the entity’s vice president, Marcos Pereda Born, who also presides over Cicyp.
The “helicopter man”, a nickname he got for his vice of traveling through his fields by air, had already received strong questioning from the members of Cicyp (La Bolsa, UIA, Chamber of Construction, Chamber of Commerce, ADEBA, SRA) for having chosen Macri for the lunch debut, a character who in an election year was not a candidate. La Rural and Pereda Born are main financiers of Together for Change.
To take an exam before the Rural Society
For a while later, at 3:00 p.m. in the Red Room Main Auditorium, the Rural Society -which has Nicolás Pino as head and Pereda Born as vice-, summoned Larreta, Javier Milei, Patricia Bullrich, Gerardo Morales, Miguel Ángel Pichetto and Juan Schiaretti from Cordoba to see what they have to offer them if they come to power in 2024 and lower the lines on zero withholdings.
Larreta, as he learned PageI1He is reluctant to go, after not having participated in the Zoom meeting that the PRO held this morning and in which he was severely punished. He not only threatens to miss because he does not want to cross paths with Macri, but because he will collide with the entire squad that repudiates him for the move and some defender, including Morales from Jujuy. All in a scenario of a Red Circle that felt that Macri is willing to bury, in every possible way, the chances of Larreta, who came running with the commissioner’s horse within the business community.
That obsession of the ex-president is, for the ceos, also putting the general result of the elections at risk, with a Peronism that seems to have run out of sparks internally in the face of such a mess of Juntos. An extra fact that adds to the confusion: Milei, at first, was not invited and threatened to hit the foul. “I’m not going to be at a table arguing with political puppets,” he told them.
Whatsapp gossip
“I spoke with Héctor’s people, he is worried about all this mess.” Héctor is Magnetto, the CEO of the Clarín Group and one of the five or six CEOs that set the pulse of the private sector. The phrase is part of a chat of AEA businessmen, where the holding company is in charge, Arcor, Techint and Ledesma. Magnetto’s concern is almost the same as that of Paolo Rocca: Macri comes out at the wrong time or breaks scenes, almost in a childish tone and playing wrong with Larreta, in whom they saw or see the survival of macrismo with something of a back to govern.
“They have been operating hard on Horacio, it was time for him to react,” another food entrepreneur defended him in the same chat. In any case, more than pondering parricide, most believe that this move puts Juntos’s real chances at risk in the election, for three reasons: the first is that it exposes the electoral fracture rather than showing political differences, as happens in the front of all
The second, opens a scenario of doubt about the accompaniment of the loser for the one who wins that PRO intern. The third, perhaps the most delicate, was told by an industrialist who has known radicalism for years and has been a militant since the days of Ernest Sanz presidential candidate, to one of his peers from the UIA: “Mauricio sees a move here by Larreta and the radicals, and the radicals are going to screw up again.” Putting the phrase in technical terms, everything indicates, for the CEOs, that the radicals, moved by Martín Lousteau and Morales through, will have little place in the Armed Forces of Juntos and will receive zero support from the PRO.
A Camarco builder, one of the oldest, who has known the Macri since they began doing business with the State, said that “fighting with Mauricio has risks, it isolates you, he persecutes you until he manages to get rid of you.” All of this has an impact, for businessmen, on the general scene. A group of the most prominent businessmen in the Federal Capital summarized it this way: “in August 2022, Juntos had an election won, liquidated, which was ready to sit down, organize, distribute the seats and reach the PASO without problems And suddenly, in April 2023, they found themselves with a divided, segmented party and with candidates like Lousteau, who does not give them any guarantee of anything, and Jorge Macri, who comes with his little group and has no reason to be massively supported. to be mayor.” In short, from an election almost won to an internal crisis with no clear end.
The Uruguayans of Mercado Libre and Globant
The fluttering of the butterfly in Buenos Aires shook the waters across the pond. The famous “Uruguayans” (because of their tax residence in that country), the business unicorns led by Marcos Galperín, from Free market and Martin Migoya, from They are gloatingThey felt the blow strongly: “There is a lot of fever with Mauricio, dynamite all the bridges,” one of the CEOs who remains in the neighboring country explained to this medium.
The unicorns, the most ideologically interested in the survival of macrismo, believe that Larreta is the only possible alternative for governance. “With Patricia this is anarchy and chaos,” they diagnose when looking at polls that give the PRO headline even better.
A leader very close to Migoya, however, was hopeful: “this Bullrich thing is a microclimate, Horacio is going to do better, and with this mess that Mauricio made, more.” Postcards from an inmate that he stuck in the heart of an establishment that was already thinking about how to shape a future government at his whim.
