The public’s distrust of the government is not a pest that comes from some exotic region. It is generated by the government from the inside out. They are not reliable because Alberto, Cristina and Massa do not trust each other, they play off-side, they hope that the other will do badly, and if one of them does not, the others will not help. The public, who has a pampas nose to guard against power when it shows weakness, is aware of this, and that is why it reduces risks by moving away from everything that depends on the government, starting with the currency. This weakness generates the self-employed in the squatter country, justice by their own hands, the informal economy and parallel dollars. It is simple: in contemporary society the public – the market for using a deteriorated word – solves better and on its own the conflicts that the State – for using another devalued term – cannot resolve. The public also reads the face of mistrust among the members of the official trifecta, which put together a government scheme that allows itself to be carried away by the power struggle, to seize the future, which are not the current positions but the electoral positions to dispute in 2021. Everyone plays on that board; whoever dominates will manage the strategy of the 2023 presidential elections. The distrust box presides over the analyzes provided by experts of all signs. Ricardo Arriazu, one of the most consulted economists, gives another turn to the main problem of the government. It is not about names or strategies. “They are teased, but they have margin. If they do not achieve confidence, they are going to run out of instruments,” he said at the presentation he gave to guests of the Quinquela fund on Thursday. Distrust inhibits the advantages that wasted assets could give you. One is the coincidence in the debate on the debt, between Alberto Fernández and Cristina de Kirchner: they acted without differences in supporting the negotiation with private bondholders. Impossible to achieve if they had acted with the same lightness and lack of solidarity that they show in other matters. Another asset is that those who manage exchange rate policy – Guzmán, Miguel Pesce or Cecilia Todesca – seem to understand what the exchange rate problem is. But it is not enough for them to find a way out, not because of a diagnostic error, but because of the difficulties in getting any solution to be accepted by the public, who distrust.
The budget will not be a “Guzmán law”
The division of Peronism did not begin now; He encrypted the destiny of that force in the last 20 years, half in the Kirchner cycle, and surpassed it with the agreement that removed Cristina from the first place in the formula. Although these extravagances of occasion do not remedy it, such as the reunion of the vice president with the main detractors that he had under his two presidencies. They were united by a legitimate goal: to gain, maintain, and not lose power. They did well, but it forces them to a permanent internal bid for control of the new process, something they have inherited, they have not chosen and cannot abandon, at the risk of losing everything to the ambition of the partners. These inquinas support the most stale thesis of Peronism K: whoever negotiates is a traitor. Opinion that closes the way to a constructive association with the opposition, which could be the basis for some reconstruction of confidence. None of the three dare to move forward, because they fear buying the cost of loneliness in this process, for example, in a pact with the opposition. Martín Guzmán succeeded on two occasions, to pass laws such as the emergency (December) and the debt restructuring (January). He asked for another law with the same consensus to go to negotiation now with the IMF: the budget, which he wants to have unanimous approval, or as close as possible to the massive support of the opposition. The reason is to impress the IMF, as before the private bondholders, with the opposition backing, which will ensure some sustainability to distrustful interlocutors. The Fund asks for it when it asks for “broad consensus”. The officials of the Treasury and the chief of staff distracted the Together for Change bloc for a week, with negotiations on an opinion to be satisfied by all. When it seemed that there was a basis for agreement, on Thursday they woke up early with a new opinion that seemed to ignore everything discussed, with added tax clauses, which developed more than 40 new articles. That day Cambiemos refused to discuss, but Peronism urged him to do so at Friday’s meeting, so that next Wednesday he will go to the Senate. With this method, the budget will lose the charm of being a “Guzmán law” because Together for Change – unless something new happens this weekend – it will abstain from voting.
