Peronism near Macri with more pressure on investors

• Primary: Macri's hard defeat against Cristina Kirchner's candidate
• Crisis: IMF historical rescue to Argentina

The week that begins this Monday will be crucial for the future of Argentina: either the government of Mauricio Macri achieves some financial stabilization, and therefore economic, or the crisis spirals and becomes political. Hence the control of changes announced on Sunday, with the pending country of the superclassic between River and Boca: no one can buy more than $ 10,000 a month, exporters can no longer treasure the dollars forever and must change them to pesos and companies and institutions must request authorization to buy foreign currencies and transfer money abroad. These are decisions that aim to sustain the beaten national currency and avoid the third mega devaluation in 16 months. It is a relatively moderate change control, far from the very strict years of Kirchnerism . But it is also a sign of the fragility of the Argentine economy and the distressing lack of government alternatives.

Desperate to the option of the uncontrolled crisis and the possibility that Macri loses the elections of October 27 for a historic beating against the Peronism of Alberto Fernández, the film director Juan José Campanella has been sending energetic messages from Madrid via whatsapp to the president. He asks him to fight, to put himself in front of his voters and lead them.

There is no doubt that Macri would like to do it, but the Argentine head of state is a prisoner of an unprecedented dilemma in the country's history. He is the president and seeks re-election, but if he turns too much towards the role of candidate, a handful of words from his rival can complicate governance very seriously, because everyone understands that the Peronist speaks as a future president, not as a candidate. How to conform Campanella and so many macrista voters without risking evils even greater than those in Argentina since August 11?

Macri lost that day some primary elections that theoretically only serve to define candidates, but when falling by 47 to 32% before Fernandez, most of the Argentines, along with that inasible entity called "markets" and the powers of Wall Street, passed to see him as a lick duck , the lame duck that Americans talk about. And they raised Fernández to the category of impending president without waiting for the October elections, something that the Peronist rejects. "I am only a candidate," says Fernandez, who spent these days in Spain and Portugal.

The last days were of a financial storm in Argentina. The peso devalued about 30% in three weeks and the value of the bonds does not stop falling. An example: those that expire in 2021 fell more than 50% in the "black August". The announcement of the Minister of Finance, Hernán Lacunza, that he will postpone the payment of about 7,000 million dollars in local letters in the hands of institutional investors and of his intention to "reperfilar" 50,000 million dollars in the long term and the 44,000 he received up to now the IMF led some to pronounce the damn word: default . There is not, but the mere mention bristled the skin of many, as well as the decrease in the volume of reserves, which fell almost 12,000 million dollars in the last month.

In that context, Fernández's verbiage also played a key role. In the three weeks since the primaries he talked a lot, a lot. In Clarín he mentioned a "restructuring" of the external debt, and the creditors interpreted it as the announcement of a future take-off. His advisors corrected him the next day, but the peso was devalued, the stock market fell and Argentine bonds as well. Fernández said that the dollar at 60 pesos was "good", he boasted that he had dropped it from 67 pesos -cree that did not exist- and three nights later he talked about 51 as a logical value. Two days after a series of mass demonstrations in favor of Macri, he met with the IMF and, after the meeting, issued a statement in which he was responsible for the country's "social catastrophe."

It was, many pointed out, a way to tell the Washington agency not to disburse the vital 5.4 billion dollars of the 57,000 loan granted last year, a disbursement that now nobody knows if it will occur. Fernandez stepped on the brake two days, promised moderation and avoid statements that further complicate the situation. The truce was short-lived. The candidate joked that Macri is "counting the days" until the elections and closed the disastrous week of the Argentines with an interview in the "Wall Street Journal" of devastating headline: "Argentina is in a virtual and hidden default".

Fernández's risky verbiage drew the attention of Miguel Pichetto, a Peronist and vice president of Macri. "When he talks about restructuring he does not do it with naivety. He knows well what it is to restructure. There are people who want to advance democratic times." Carlos Pagni, one of the most important political analysts in the country, agreed: "You have to rule out an imperfection when it comes to speaking."

Macri voters and not a few analysts are convinced that Fernández seeks to accelerate the crisis so that the current government pays the price and he can be seen as the reconstructor of the country's economy. Fernández says that this is not the case, and asks for an irrefutable fact to have an account: the president has been, for almost four years, Macri, and the numbers of the economy are worse than when he assumed, although many data from the government of Cristina Kirchner were heavily rigged or, directly, did not exist.

That the current head of state does not reach December 10 would be a very negative fact for the country : 91 years ago that a non-Peronist president does not complete his term. "They want us to go vomiting blood," a macrista minister came to denounce, who does not want the same anticipated end for the government as Raúl Alfonsín and Fernando De la Rúa. The political wing of the government speaks of being "prudent" and "turning the other cheek," which inflames many of its voters. Kirchner said during the weekend without giving evidence that Macri prompted the devaluation of 25% on the day after the primary and defined it as "bad human being."

The expectation is enormous for this Monday, when the markets are reopened after the weekend. After the announcement of the exchange control, the local media anticipate a forceful action by the Central Bank, which could offer billions of dollars for sale to "anchor" the value of the US currency at 60 pesos. With the bridges of dialogue between government and opposition broken and the elections two eternal months away, the Argentines only hope that digital banking works today, they pray not to find messages of technical damage. Every time they appear it is because something serious happens. And everything, always, has as a thermometer the price of the dollar, nodal value of an economy, Argentina, deeply ill for decades.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

• Argentina
• IMF
• Mauricio Macri

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