By Luis Bruschtein on June 17, 2023
Christina Kirshner, photo: Télam
There is a message in the new name Union for the Homeland, that the progressive and left partys came up with, as it puts the focus on the debt with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Like all messages, it may or may not be applied, because of the internal problems, but in any case it implies a commitment.
Choosing the term “Homeland” for the new denomination and focusing the priority on a new relationship with the IMF that eliminates the conditions to the economic policy were the signals that emerged this week to start defining the programmatic axis proposed by Cristina Kirchner. The skirmishes to organize the internal affairs were foreseeable and dangerous for the new alliance that moves on a finite path of criticizing the government and trying at the same time not to expel it and to contain it.
Unlike the tendency to dilute contents in order to be more comprehensive, the name Unión por la Patria, (Union of the Homeland) which replaces Frente de Todos, proposes two convening words with defined weight. “Union” and “Fatherland” is more than “Front” and “All”. At the same time, this choice suggests a situation of risk for the Homeland, for which this Union is summoned. There is an awareness of this risky situation in the decision of the members of the alliance. This feeling is also latent in society, expressed in the growth of the most extreme proposals.
The other proposals represented by two variants of an authoritarian and conservative neoliberalism point to issues such as “the political caste” or “security”, but avoid talking about economic issues.
By pointing to the monumental debt contracted by Mauricio Macri with the IMF as the cause of the adjustments and inflation that punish Argentines and have put the Homeland at risk, Unión por la Patria acknowledges the consequences but, unlike Juntos por el Cambio, also addresses what it considers to be the cause of those problems.
Martín Redrado, who is pointed out as Horacio Rodríguez Larreta’s main advisor, stated that instead of “begging” in China or negotiating with the IMF, the solution would be to increase exports in order to have dollars. Implicit in that phrase is the increase of hydrocarbon exploitation as an export material. But that point will be possible thanks to the renationalization of YPF, the exploitation of Vaca Muerta and the Néstor Kirchner gas pipeline, all measures of the popular governments. Mauricio Macri hindered or stopped all of them.
The new name of the Frente de Todos is simply a message that may or may not be fulfilled. The figure of Cristina Kirchner as the vector of that alliance has the strength that both in her government and in Néstor Kirchner’s, those aspirations were turned into action.
The terms “Union” and “Homeland” have been bastardized countless times. Especially “Homeland”, used by the dictatorship to commit all kinds of misdeeds against the people. And there is no “Homeland” without the people. The people are the constituent of the concept of “Homeland”. The dictatorship replaced with symbols, such as the anthem or the flag, the concepts they symbolize. The phrase “the Homeland is the Other” rescued for the concept of Homeland the communitarian meaning, the social category, that it really has. It is a community of culture, interests, history, geography and natural wealth.
There are sectors of the local left that reject this idea because they confront nationalism with internationalism. But no one can defend a distant cause if he does not know how to defend what he has. And the right wing believes that to be nationalist is to salute the flag and ride a horse or dance the malambo but let the transnationals take the country’s wealth or decide the fate of Argentines. For neoliberalism, to speak of Homeland is anachronistic in a globalized world hegemonized by the United States.
The Homeland is the Other and the Patria Grande towards the integration of Latin American peoples are concepts that converge in a current idea of Homeland. It is the term-concept most opposed in its essence to neoliberalism.
The announcement of the new name of the former Frente de Todos coincided with the first internal skirmishes. Cristina Kirchner was annoyed by the threat of the list headed by Daniel Scioli to judicialize the debate. Scioli’s acknowledgement that he was tempted by Patricia Bullrich to join her is not positive for this internal debate either. These are toxic contacts. She is a candidate who promises adjustment and repression and this relationship leaves the impression that Scioli could accompany her in Congress.
Cristina recalled in Santa Cruz that there were Peronist legislators who supported the process of accelerated indebtedness imposed by the Macrista government. A reminder that involved Massismo. The only ones who voted against and in minority were the legislators of Kirchnerism and the left.
The Vice-President’s speech in Santa Cruz recognized as her allies Scioli, who somehow represents albertismo, and massismo. But by prioritizing the treatment of the debt with the Fund and remembering their sins -one in the subsequent negotiation with the Fund and the others for the vote that resigned the payment to the vulture funds- she warned about the need to maintain that unity in difficult situations, as government or as opposition.
The day after that speech, on Friday, it was known that the Fe Party, led by the late Momo Venegas, and the Third Position party of Graciela Camaño, hollow labels coming from Peronism, were going to follow the path of Florencio Randazzo and Miguel Angel Pichetto to join the Macrismo party. Beyond the doubts that persist about the lists, whether Wado de Pedro or Sergio Massa, and even Axel Kicillof, Cristina’s warnings are well-founded. For the time being, speculations on who will head the ticket remain as conjectures.
In the opposite camp, one of her pre-candidates suffered the consequence of very exemplary phenomena. Enraptured by the support achieved by his administration in Jujuy, Governor Gerardo Morales invited the film director James Cameron, known for films such as Titanic and Avatar and for his support to environmentalism. It was part of his campaign as a pre-candidate of the macrismo party and as a way of legitimizing the exploitation of lithium. But representatives of the native peoples showed Cameron that he had been deceived and that the way in which this exploitation was carried out affects the environment and these peoples. Cameron reacted, called a press conference and said that Morales had “ambushed” him.
At that moment, massive protest mobilizations took place in all the cities of Jujuy, but especially in its capital San Salvador. They began with the teachers’ salary discussion, but the entire educational community joined in. There were blocks and blocks of crowded columns of people demonstrating their rejection. Morales issued a decree to penalize street protests. The protest increased and he had to withdraw it. Now he will impose these penalties in the reform of the provincial constitution.
Many of those people who mobilized were part of his electoral base that did not flinch when Milagro Sala was illegally persecuted. But now they are mobilizing in the face of the possibility that this repression will cover them. It is likely that they are beginning to feel that they were also “ambushed”, like Cameron.
Source: Pagina 12, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English