{"id":48612,"date":"2025-05-30T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-30T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/?p=48612"},"modified":"2025-05-30T11:59:17","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T14:59:17","slug":"mauricio-macri-from-kremlin-wizard-to-juggler-at-the-traffic-lights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/mauricio-macri-from-kremlin-wizard-to-juggler-at-the-traffic-lights\/","title":{"rendered":"Mauricio Macri: From \u2018Kremlin wizard\u2019 to juggler at the traffic lights"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Giuliano da Empoli\u2019s novel The Wizard of the Kremlin<\/em><\/a> revolves around one of the oldest political professions: that of the political strategist. Whether as an advisor, a counselor, or a politician, the ability to envision scenarios, analyze them, and project a power strategy is an art within the reach of few. Politicians often like to see themselves as magicians, though in practice, the suit usually fits too tightly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The former president of Argentina (2015\u20132019), Mauricio Macri, surely sees himself as a political magician, judging by his attitudes, statements, and airs of arrogance. His entry into politics seems to back him up: he created a local party from scratch in Buenos Aires, the country\u2019s capital, through which he achieved electoral victories and held the city\u2019s mayoralty from 2007 onward. By nationalizing the party\u2014Propuesta Republicana<\/em> (PRO), a right-liberal formation\u2014he planted a growing wedge between Argentina\u2019s two traditional political parties since the mid-20th century: the Justicialist Party (Peronism) and the Radical Civic Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Argentina\u2019s political evolution showed PRO in constant political ascent until its shining moment: the 2015 presidential election, in which the party, with Macri as its candidate, defeated the hegemonic Kirchnerist movement that had dominated from 2003 to 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Up to that point, the political strategy was impeccable\u2014so much so that it culminated in the presidency. As every great strategist knows, according to the political adage that gaining power is easier than maintaining and expanding it, the next task for Macri\u2019s PRO was, at a minimum, to consolidate the presidency, secure the only constitutionally permitted re-election, and then leave behind political heirs to continue this new hegemony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

None of that happened. A series of grave\u2014strategically catastrophic\u2014political errors led PRO to a third-place finish in the legislative elections on May 18 in Buenos Aires City (CABA), PRO\u2019s birthplace and a place it hadn\u2019t lost any kind of election in since 2007. The wizard of power had turned into a mere juggler on street corners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Macri\u2019s presidency, after dislodging Kirchnerism, began with a high level of social consensus that led to a clear victory in the 2017 midterm elections. However, his policies were somewhat erratic, especially economically\u2014a crucial aspect of his electoral platform. This indecisiveness in governance led the administration to seek an extraordinary loan from the IMF to stabilize the exchange rate and control inflation. The failure of this strategy led to a sharp devaluation, a loss of market confidence, inflation, and growing public discontent. Thus began the road to political calvary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Poor political communication, inflation, and a string of missteps turned the 2019 presidential election into a scenario that, just a year earlier, seemed unthinkable: the return of the much-maligned Kirchnerism, with a candidate handpicked by Cristina Fern\u00e1ndez de Kirchner, who herself became vice president. The dream of re-election evaporated due to self-inflicted mistakes and flawed strategic calculations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government of Alberto Fern\u00e1ndez and Cristina Kirchner, beyond the pandemic, collapsed under the weight of fierce and escalating internal battles between the president\u2019s officials and those loyal to Cristina, spiraling inflation in the last year, and a ruling-party candidate for 2023 perceived as opportunistic, demagogic, and lacking substance. In this context, the electoral triumph of PRO\u2014the only viable opposition\u2014seemed all but assured with the candidacy of Horacio Rodr\u00edguez Larreta, twice mayor of Buenos Aires. Inexplicably, Macri squandered this by inciting internal conflict within PRO between Rodr\u00edguez Larreta\u2014possibly seen as a threat to Macri\u2019s party leadership\u2014and Patricia Bullrich, a prominent but politically erratic party figure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result was PRO\u2019s defeat in the general election\u2014coming in third place\u2014and a runoff between the Kirchnerist candidate and the political newcomer La Libertad Avanza<\/em> (LLA), led by Javier Milei. The migration of PRO votes to Milei in the runoff sealed the latter\u2019s surprising electoral triumph.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And how did Macri position himself in this new scenario? As a self-appointed political strategist and partner, \u201clending\u201d personnel due to the new government\u2019s improvisational and loosely structured nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Milei\u2019s government<\/a> initially welcomed Macri politely, but as it gained footing and scored early political wins\u2014such as curbing runaway inflation\u2014the president first delayed any formal alliance, then began to sidestep Macri\u2019s outreach efforts, and finally dismissed any agreement with him. He suggested that PRO politicians were free to join LLA and, after LLA\u2019s victory in \u201cPRO\u2019s yellow stronghold\u201d (Buenos Aires and the party\u2019s signature color), he declared that Macri should retire from politics. Virtually every media outlet and political analysis currently agrees that PRO\u2019s spectacular failure stems from the forced errors committed by Macri in this election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s likely that the political exodus from PRO to LLA will consolidate this new movement in the October midterms and catapult it toward the 2027 presidential race\u2014unless the \u201cMacri syndrome\u201d\u2014from wizard to juggler at the traffic lights\u2014also afflicts Milei.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*Machine translation proofread by Jana\u00edna da Silva.<\/sub><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Giuliano da Empoli\u2019s novel The Wizard of the Kremlin revolves around one of the oldest political professions: that of the political strategist. Whether as an advisor, a counselor, or a politician, the ability to envision scenarios, analyze them, and project a power strategy is an art within the reach of few. Politicians often like to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":48589,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17157,16733,17039],"tags":[15635],"gps":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-48612","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politia-en","8":"category-argentina-en","9":"category-internet-es-en","10":"tag-debates"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48612"},{"taxonomy":"gps","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/gps?post=48612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}