Macri, Larreta and Michetti will toast to victory in a place that should be public
Sunday, April 26, 2015
Horacio Rodríguez Larreta and Gabriela Michetti are seen in times they shared smiles in public.
By Sebastián Lacunza
Editor-in-Chief
Editor-in-Chief
TV screens will show tonight a festival of colorful balloons, music and excited hugs. Barring unforeseen circumstances, the joy will grip the Costa Salguero Centre, located along the coast of the Río de la Plata and several blocks from the Jorge Newbery Metropolitan Airport. Once upon a time, Buenos Aires may have imagined these 17 hectares as the perfect open space for practicing sports and trying in vain to spot Uruguay on the other side of the widest river in the world. However, since this convention centre — a soulless complex — was inaugurated in 1994, no porteño was allowed to go into it without an invitation or paying an entrance fee determined by the organizer.
The closest subway station to this privileged place in Buenos Aires — equidistant from Ciudad Universitaria and Puerto Madero neighbourhood — is about 2.5 kilometres away. Consequently, whoever wants to come tonight to the celebration of PRO in Costa Salguero should use their own car or pay for a taxi, or take the regular bus 33 from Retiro, one of the most crumbling lines that cross the city.
This 40,000 square metre complex, occupied in equal parts by pavilions and an open area, is one of the greatest icons of the segregation of BA City. Is it Macri’s responsibility after eight years in office? As far as his time in City Hall is concerned, it is. Eight years weren’t enough for the mayor and PRO presidential candidate to expand the access to the waterfront. In today’s words, to “democratize” the river.
Costa Salguero (the place where Macri and his wife, the entrepreneur Juliana Awada, celebrated their wedding, and for which licencees paid as little as 160,000 pesos in 2014, according to opposition leaders) began operating in 1994 when the City was ruled by a mere delegate of the president (then, the conservative Peronist Carlos Menem). Mayors began to be elected by popular vote in 1996. They were the conservative UCR leader Fernando de la Rúa (replaced by his friend Enrique Olivera), the progressive Aníbal Ibarra (replaced after his impeachment by Jorge Telerman) and Macri. Costa Salguero survived all of them. While some of De la Rúa’s former officials and allies currently occupy high positions in City Hall, others support at least three of today’s challenging candidates. Ibarra, meanwhile, insists on being elected within the Victory Front (FpV). Telerman, Daniel Scioli’s campaign chief, is also supposed to back the Kirchnerite ballot, with seven hopefuls trying to take second place, ahead of the ECO’s Martín Lousteau and Graciela Ocaña, a front where the UCR’s political operator Enrique Nosiglia and presidential hopeful Elisa Carrio appointed their allies.
Communicating vessels throughout much of the City’s political spectrum go beyond the fact that many politicians tolerated the virtual privatization of public parks, despite some slight progress during Ibarra’s term. Tow trucks that act as street robbers rather than traffic controllers, cartelized companies in charge of the garbage disposal system (with close ties to union leader Hugo Moyano) and exceptions to urban planning guidelines are other structural policies that have hardly changed since the times of Menem.
But one of Macri’s candidates will win. If the sum of Horacio Rodríguez Larreta and Gabriela Michetti do not reach an overwhelming win today, transforming the July election into a mere formality, they will gain a margin wide enough to calmly settle the matter. They will, perhaps, because fifteen or more candidates to rule the great capital of Latin America who define themselves as “progressive” or leftwing do not generate enough confidence in voters to carry out transformations in core issues like education, health and transport. For now, critics of PRO should recognize that Macri, in his second term, put the City’s ample budget into action. The city has today more pedestrian streets downtown, an innovative City Hall has revolutionized the once marginalized neighbourhood of Parque Patricios and a number of works has eased traffic in some districts. The opposition to Macri should note that teams, activists and perseverance beyond the defeats are needed to govern the city and that the argument that PRO wins due to the allegations that the largest media conglomerate supports it has been shown to be insufficient. Politics is not about outburts when elections approach, because such fragility is exposed to voters who sometimes prioritize governance.
In the last hours, Rodríguez Larreta, the Cabinet chief and principal executor of Macri’s policies, showed a clear optimism about beating the challenging Michetti by a considerable margin. If this does not occur, the PRO party apparatus will bear the brunt, but the presidential hopeful Macri will not be affected by something so natural in politics as an internal disagreement. All of the leaders of Macri’s party are aware of the benefits of celebrating, so tonight’s picture will show Michetti and Larreta sharing the stage and promising to fight for their boss’s presidential nomination.
@sebalacunz