Former presidential candidate Patricia Bullrich, third in Argentina’s elections last Sunday, has announced her support for the ultra Javier Milei in the second round on November 19th. The conservative leader said in a press conference that this is the only way the opposition will be able to defeat Kirchnerist Peronism and its candidate Sergio Massa. “When the country is in danger, anything is allowed. We have an obligation not to be neutral. Our decision is unilateral, there were no negotiations with Milei, said Bullrich, president of Pro, the Macri party that is a founding partner of the opposition alliance Together for Change. Bullrich’s decision represents a de facto break in this coalition that Macri brought to the Casa Rosada in 2015 with the support of centrist parties such as the Unión Cívica Radical (UCR).
The announcement by Bullrich and his Pro party is very good news for Milei, who has been carrying out an accelerated public transformation process since Monday to win the support of Macri’s government. The Pro will provide leaders to Ultra teams that lack management capacity. However, electoral benefits are not guaranteed. Both the UCR and the moderate sectors of the Pro have already expected that they will not support Milei. The same will happen to a portion of the 6.2 million voters who cast Bullrich’s ballot on Sunday and whose loyalty to the leadership’s political agreements is not guaranteed. Milei received 30% of the vote in the first round, while Massa received 36.7%. How many the far right can add to the Together for Change pie in November is still a mystery.
Politically, in any case, the death certificate was signed this Wednesday of Together for Change, a coalition born as a “republican and liberal” alternative to the Peronism of Néstor and Cristina Kirchner. The strategy was successful: Macri became the first non-Kirchnerist president since 2003 and was close to re-election in 2019. The economic crisis blocked his ambitions and eventually Kirchnerism returned to power under the leadership of Alberto Fernández. The Peronist management was a failure and Together for Change thought it was just one step away from returning to the Casa Rosada. However, Milei intervened. With calls to “exterminate the political caste,” dollarize the economy, arm civilians and even promote the sale of organs, the Ultra came second to the Peronist Massa on Sunday. Without a chance for real power, Together for Change and the Pro imploded three days after losing in the first round.
Ernesto Sanz, leader of the UCR and one of the founders of the alliance eight years ago, had already expected that his party would not join the support of the far right. “When the parties start deciding different things and no longer feel like staying together, it is obvious that they will separate. “Coalitions are not made to last forever, they live what their members want,” he said on Wednesday morning, as rumors about Bullrich’s announcement were already circulating.
Bullrich had expected on the night of his defeat that his only political goal was to put an end to “populism,” which he understood Massa and Peronism to represent. He didn’t talk about Milei, but it was clear that supporting the Ultra candidate was among his options. A little more than two days were enough for him to break up with the libertarian after weeks of insults and even a complaint for insults. Milei said in the last presidential debate that Bullrich was a “bomb-throwing Montonera” because of her past in the Peronist guerrilla Montoneros in the 1970s and accused her of murdering “children in a kindergarten.” The Ultra called on Monday to forget the grievances of the past and unite in a single bloc against Massa. This Wednesday, after a personal conversation, the leader said that they had “forgiven” each other. Milei illustrated reconciliation on social media with a lion and a duck hugging each other.
Argentina’s political scene has completely changed. A new diffuse middle space is now emerging between the extreme right of Mieli and the left of Kirchnerism, which must define their political support. The Pro Hawks, represented by Bullrich and Macri, have already chosen the extreme right. The party’s doves, represented by Buenos Aires Prime Minister Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, and the UCR are torn between giving freedom of action to their voters and organic support for Massa. Bullrich said Wednesday he hoped his decision would not affect the coalition. Their argument is that a Kirchnerist victory scenario would be worse. “If Kirchnerism wins, Together for Change will be completely disbanded, because we already know the practices of pressure, blackmail and ungovernability that they are trying to lead the provinces and municipalities to,” the former candidate said.
After the announcement, the leader of the UCR deputies in Congress, Mario Negri, reiterated his party’s complaints against the unconsulted decision by Bullrich and Macri. “Society has portrayed us as adversaries, that is our institutional role. It would have been better to reunite the coalition because it is very damaged. “Radicalism must maintain a neutral position,” he said.
There will be further political debate in the interior, where ten new governors come from both the Pro Party (three) and the Radical Party (seven). The new territorial leaders cannot break “Together for Change” overnight because the effort depends on this alliance and their votes in the regional parliaments.
Massa will now have fishing opportunities at Together for Change orphanages. She is also targeting 700,000 votes that went to the traditional left on Sunday and another nearly two million who went for Juan Schiaretti, a non-Kirchnerist Peronist who governs Córdoba province, the country’s second largest after Buenos Aires .
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