Macri, the US candidate in the Argentine presidential elections

Mauricio Macri, with a fortune valued at 52 million pesos and defender of capitalism, is the US candidate in the presidential elections in Argentina, playing for the future of the nation

Written by Mariela Perez Valenzuela

In the second round of the presidential elections in Argentina, on the 22nd, at stake is the future of the South American nation, because if he wins Mauricio Macri, of the Rightist coalition’s Cambiemos and a figure of US confidence, will see a return to conservatism in the region, the disappearance of social projects of the past 12 years and a return to a more reactionary neoliberalism chapter.

That is the substance of the political and economic thought of Macri, who was only three percentage points below -a virtual technical tie- with the other postulate, Daniel Scioli, who represents the ruling Front for Victory (FPV), who President Cristina Fernandez, about to complete her eight consecutive years, defends.

This Sunday, the two contenders held a televised debate at the Faculty of Law, in the University of Buenos Aires. -the first in the history of this type of elections- in which the conservative could not present a coherent political program, he was on the defensive and avoided the questions of his rival. Scioli, however, made clear and coherent proposals on four topics of public discussion.

DANGER OF BLANK VOTES

During the campaign, a few days before the polls, a dangerous current between some political groups has opened, even those called Left, and called on citizens to vote in blank, which favours the conservative thus detracting from the possibilities of Scioli, more even among those who are still undecided, as if the Argentina ruined in 2001-2002 were birth years and the bad memories were forgotten.

To the 32 million Argentines called to the so-called Day Zero -and according to opinions of some political scientists- they will find it difficult to choose between the two postulates, arguing that both represent the bourgeoisie, but also remember that most of the leaders of this nation have belonged to that class.

The difference is that Macri is in the interests of big business, while Scioli made a public commitment to continue the thinking of the late former President Nestor Kirchner and his wife, Senator and current President, who founded with his political work the current known Kirchnerism.

Kirchner not only saved Argentina from the economic debacle left by the neoliberalism implemented by former President Carlos Menem, but made an important contribution to the integration of Latin America, ranking among the great leaders emerging from 1999 in that region , with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in the lead.

Argentina Left groups aligned with Scioli have responded to parties like the Socialists asking for a blank vote, that knowing the history of Macri “Not all the same” voting for one or the other, since the leader of Cambiemos will sink the Argentine people converting their chances to a Right government, another dark area of ​​politics in the South American nation.

It’s no secret in Argentina that Macri was committed to the ideals of Menem, and has not hidden his relations with active figures on the Right like former presidents Alvaro Uribe of Colombia, José María Aznar, and the defeated candidate of the Brazilian Social Democracy Aécio Neves, the man of former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, and other notables neoliberals of the area.

Political experts like the Argentinean Atilio Boron wrote that Macri is a tough and radical conservative who to win the Casa Rosada will have the support of the local and regional oligarchy, the Business Association of Argentina, the middle class who publicly manifest hatred for Kirchnerism, large private media and the US Embassy. No doubt, as his government program, he will turn the current nut in the land of the tango.

Along with the millionaire candidate are conservative intellectuals such as Mario Vargas Llosa, Andres Oppenheimer, Miami Herald columnist Carlos Alberto Montaner and Enrique Krauze, usual bootlickers of the White House.

THE MAN OF THE MEDIA

Macri was born in Buenos Aires on February 8, 1959, son of an Italian who arrived in Argentina in 1949. A civil engineer, he was head of government of the City of Buenos Aires from December 2007 until 2015, when he ran for the presidency. In the province of Buenos Aires, where Scioli also ruled until this year, a third of the Argentina vote is concentrated.

Considered a successful man, with a strong presence in the media, much more when he was president of Boca Juniors between 1995 and 2008, has 34% of his fortune in accounts in Switzerland and the United States. Just in 2014 he placed in his account 11 million pesos earned a year earlier, according to sworn declarations of assets.

The postulate of Cambiemos is also involved in La Barra Golf Club of Uruguay for 48,171 pesos, and owns land in that country, in Maldonado, which, he says, received as a donation worth 3.4 million. He has 12 different business companies, and has two properties in Buenos Aires: his current home, an apartment of 370 m2 on Avenida Libertador valued at one million 233 thousand pesos and an apartment in Recoleta worth four million. The rate of exchange for a dollar is 9.56.

THE POLITICAL MACRI

In 2003, Mauricio Macri founded the Commitment to change party. In 2007 he made the newly formed Republican Proposal, known by the acronym PRO. For the 2015 electoral purposes, the PRO joined the Radical Civic Union (UCR) party that won him the most votes in the first round, especially in the interior provinces of the country. The UCR is part of the Cambiemos coalition.

Macri has not advanced much of his real plans to lead Argentina, if he wins the premiership, but there are always leaks.

But the public knew part of his ideas when the C5N channel in its Sunday program Political Economy, released a leaked video of a secret meeting last May between the economic direction of the PRO and a representation of the powerful business group in the country.

The revelations, in line with the ideals of a high-flying businessman, said the head of government would eliminate the eventual retirement “for those who never paid,” would impose a tax adjustment, establish zero tariffs on imports, would pay “vulture funds” without arguing and unfreeze relations with the UK.

The statements are scaring in the video by Miguel Broda, an economist linked to Menem, and one of the economists of PRO, who estimated that “Argentina is a decadent machine ” and needs “an economic team like (Domingo) Cavallo” Minister of Economy of Menem.

Cavallo was the driver during the Menem administration of neoliberal and unpopular measures and ended up sinking the country after being called in by the resigning President Fernando de la Rua (2001) to try to fix the national financial debacle.

The experts accompanying Macri also include José Luis Espert, adviser to Cavallo under President De la Rua and Carlos Melconian, who asked to give an overview of what will happen under the next government (if your boss proves victorious) assured “There is no ideology, just capitalism”.

Argentines should think carefully as they mark their ballot.

No one should forget the current international strength of their country, one of the pedestals of Latin American and Caribbean integration, but also the economic achievements in just over a decade by a nation that was reborn from its ruins thanks to the Kirchners and their government teams

They can even forget the recovery of the usurped Falkland Islands. Fulvio Pompeo, one of the possible foreign policy chiefs of Macri said that after winning at the polls, the new government would “thaw” relations with the United Kingdom to a low level for the sovereignty dispute over the Malvinas. Pompeo also warned of the dissolution of the Secretariat of Relative Affairs to the islands seized by the Europeans from their legitimate occupants.

There is no doubt that this is the man to have in the Casa Rosada for the United States, the imperial chief who pulls the strings of the Rightist groups in the region and tries to impose its policies with presidents allied to its ideology.

Macri is the representative of the most retrograde policy in the region. A Right-winger that will certainly try the impossible to shatter the unity of the progressive governments in the area, which conspire to defeat strategies driven by Presidents in the White House, accompanied by Uribe, the Colombian paramilitary chief and Aznar, the caricature of a Spain in absolute decline, and Neves, always plotting to destroy President Dilma Rousseff.