Sergio candidate

Sergio Massa’s situation is related to Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s. He does not control the possibility of his own presidential candidacy.

Following the recent La Plata rally and probably following the attempt on her life, Argentina’s vice-president may well have embarked upon a path which will lead to her being unable to avoid a 2023 Casa Rosada candidacy, since she – like no other Frente de Todos candidate – could be a guarantee not just of victory but even of an honourable defeat for pan-peronism.

Massa does not control his immediate future. His negative opinion poll ratings are similar to those of Fernández de Kirchner, Alberto Fernández and Mauricio Macri, who have all had the responsibility of governing and disappointing, but he, without having had the opportunity of the top job, accumulates the same levels of rejection.

But the degrading terms pegged to him in the opinion polls –

“panqueque

(flip-flop)”,

“chanta

(loudmouth)”,

“low credibility” or (as baptised by somebody who deep down envies him) “ventajita (petty opportunist)” – could end up, depending on the context, being attributes like flexibility, pragmatism, straddling the grieta rift and even an “ethical” approach to his responsibilities. A shift in perspective is possible for a society depending in large measure on the results of his economic management during the next few months, as well as Cristina’s eventual decision whether or not to be a candidate.

A year ago Massa maintained that he would not present himself in the PASO primaries as a candidate if Alberto Fernández ran for re-election, but would not hesitate to do so if he had to dispute the top Frente de Todos representation with a Kirchnerite candidate. Back then he imagined the latter to be Axel Kicillof, to whom Eduardo ‘Wado’ de Pedro would need to be added today. Since he became economy minister, Massa maintained that he will not run in next year’s race and that he is thinking more of constructing a reputation and consolidating his image as a problem-solver taking charge of difficult situations. That would allow him to compete for the presidency in 2027. Given that he turns 50 only this year, he could compete in 2027, 2031, 2035, 2039 and even beyond that.

But, like Cristina Fernández Kirchner, that is something Massa does not control – were his economic experiment to be successful, he probably would end up being the natural Frente de Todos candidate for 2023. And if it did not succeed, he would not be able to run in 2027 or in the following four years either. His destiny, like that of another rapid political mind, ex-lawmaker and former interior minister José Luis Manzano, might then seem to lie in dedication to private activity and business.

If Sergio Massa’s economic strategy had to be summarised, it might be said that rather than relying on a consistent macroeconomic model or theory (like everybody who has studied economics systematically), the Tigre leader stakes his claim to success on being the smartest and hardest-working. Paradoxically there is something Soviet about Massa’s economic vision – the Soviet Union’s Gosplan (Gosudárstvenny Komitet po Planírovaniyu), the famous and deterministic Planning Ministry occupying the main building in front of the Kremlin in Moscow – since he believes in the premise that with much speed, intelligence and endeavour it is possible to beat the market in planning better the needs for each micromoment. In today’s Argentina there is the dólar soja, dólar soja II, dólar Qatar, dólar

tarjeta, etc...

The Soviet mathematicians even decided what colour the dresses of 15-yearolds should be every year, believing that they could do more efficiently than the CEOS of the Western fashion houses meeting annually in París. Niccolo Machiavelli’s Prínce needed both a strong will and good luck. Massa has plenty of strong will, which has often played against him when transformed into a hyperkinetic energy which the passage of time is tending to correct. Like the sculptor working on marble, time can seep away energy and almost never adds it.

And perhaps Lady Luck might have reserved for this king of tacticians a strategic play which is also theoretically consistent instead of inventing every week a different exchange rate or “precios cuidados, justos, solidarios” price controls plus a second, third or fourth system of obtaining import permits to stem the drainage of foreign currency. Such a play would concede him the Rosetta Stone to decipher the solution to inflation – a loan of US$15 billion from the Brazilian Central Bank under the Lula Presidency, which together with a Chinese currency swap would enable sufficient reserves to be accumulated to unify the exchange rate and launch a plan against inflation anchored on the dollar. Even without that present from the gods (which would also be thanks to Alberto Fernández due to his special relationship with Lula), Massa aspires that if he does not succeed in lowering inflation drastically, it will be valued that he never preferred to lower it via recession, opting between these two evils (like most of the population) in favour of higher growth over lower inflation.

In any of these cases, having accumulated at the age of 50 the experiences of having been Cabinet chief, the founder of a party which won the elections in the country’s most populous district, Congress speaker and economy minister transforms him into a recurrent presidential candidate.

“Were his economic experiment to be successful, Massa probably would end up being the natural Frente de Todos candidate for 2023. And if it did not succeed, he would not be able to run in 2027.”

“If he does not succeed in lowering inflation drastically, Massa hopes voters will value the fact that he never preferred to lower it via recession.”