Loyalty Day leaves Peronism in Argentina

Peronism creaks. And then the Argentine government also creaks. This Monday, the movement founded by Juan Domingo Peron celebrated Loyalty Day. It is a date of great political relevance. The heirs of the military remember that October 17, 1945 in which tens of thousands of people asked in the Plaza de Mayo for the freedom of the leader. Peron was then Vice President and Minister of Labor and ended up imprisoned as the victim of an internal fight at the top of the military power. The pressure from the street became unbearable for the president, Edelmiro Farrel, who gave in to the pressure, summoned Peron to the Casa Rosada and asked him to calm down the crowd. This is what Peron did, in exchange for a commitment to early elections. That day it all started. 77 years later, Peronism exhibits the wounds of a fratricidal fight, the most serious since the return to democracy, almost 40 years ago.

The president of Argentina, Alberto Fernandez, excluded himself from the celebrations. He preferred to inaugurate a highway on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, surrounded by some of his most faithful ministers, and occupy the rest of the day with inconsequential meetings. Krichnerism, which is part of the government coalition, took the Plaza de Mayo for itself and organized a large demonstration in the afternoon with claims against the head of state. The traditional unions, grouped in the CGT, set up a rally but in the morning, in a sports club far from the center. There were three parallel acts of three forces that arrived at the Casa Rosada under the umbrella of the Frente de Todos and today they dispute real power in Argentina. It only unites those who consider themselves Peronists.

The background sea is the fight between Alberto Fernandez and his vice, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. The pair have not spoken for weeks. They tried an approach when the seriousness of the economic crisis put governance at risk. From an agreement between both, the name of Sergio Massa, head of the third leg of the official coalition, as Minister of Economy emerged. Fernandez and Kirchner embraced the adjustment program that Massa brought before the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and for a moment Argentina experienced a political truce in the Casa Rosada. The pax did not last long.

No one doubts that inflation will reach 100% in December, while union pressure grows for wage increases and Kirchnerism for more controls on companies so that prices do not rise. Everyone considers that Fernandez has not done enough to contain the crisis. In front of the Casa Rosada, Maximo Kirchner, son of the vice president, attacked the agreement that the president signed with the IMF to reschedule the payment of the 44,000 million dollars that Mauricio Macri received in 2018. “We will have to negotiate again, because that way we will never be able to plan the country we want. If the State cannot plan, the Argentine family will be less able to plan”, warned Maximo Kirchner, scourge of Fernandez, in the Plaza de Mayo.

Until now, the Peronist unions of the CGT were the main support for Fernandez, a president who, since his break with Kirchner, governs more and more alone. But the latest changes of ministers hurt confidence. Fernandez named, without consulting the CGT, the replacement for the Minister of Labor, Fernando Moroni, whom they considered their own. “All confidence was lost. It is necessary to revalidate that trust at the polls and for a leader to emerge,” said Armando Cavalieri lapidary, head of the Trade Employees Union since 1986. The unions, a column of traditional Peronism, took advantage of October 17 to launch the National Peronist Trade Union Movement, a novel political experiment that aims to “place councilors, provincial legislators, deputies and national senators,” according to Gerardo Martinez, leader of the construction workers.

Today Fernandez has Kirchnerism in opposition and Peronist trade unionism with the intention of fighting at the polls. On October 17, he found him alone in a public act, in which he preferred to criticize his predecessor, Mauricio Macri. Days ago, however, he harshly attacked Cristina Kirchner. Meeting with some of the most powerful businessmen in the country at the IDEA colloquium, he questioned the innocence of her vice president in the cases he faces for alleged corruption in public works when she was president. “In this government, did someone ask you for a penny to make it public? Did someone ask you for something? () I challenge you, because your answer is going to be no,” he said. Cristina Kirchner has not yet responded to the attack. It will only be a matter of time.

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