“Argentina chooses Macri despite the difficulties because Kirchner's Peronism is definitively over: too divided, and by now the cycle of major parties has ended throughout South America, with the left in retreat after the last great experiences with Lula and Chavez . Morales himself, completely different from Macri, gave a response in Bolivia that was different from the typically Peronist one”. Giulio Sapelli, professor of economic history at the University of Milan and a great expert on Latin America, thus explains the recent mid-term legislative elections which saw the strengthening of President Mauricio Macri, elected two years ago with just 3% over Cristina Kirchner, wife of Nestor and representative of a dynasty that has occupied the Casa Rosada since 2003 to 2015, first pulling it out of the great crisis of playpen, then no longer finding the answers needed to bring economic growth back to South America's third (once second) economy.
"Cambiemos", Macri's party, won in the mid-term elections in 13 provinces and swept away in the capital Buenos Aires. The turnout was 78% and this time Macri almost doubled Cristina: 41,76% (over 10 million votes in a country of 40 million inhabitants) against 21,83%. A result against all odds?
“Yes, because historically in Argentina mid-term elections are negative for the governing party, even more so than in the United States, and leave room for populism. Macri, on the other hand, obtained his customs clearance, taking advantage above all of the fact that Kirchnerist Peronism no longer exists and the best alternative remains him, who, amidst a thousand difficulties, is bringing the country back to better and more stable economic prospects".
Was he therefore elected mainly for the demerits of others?
“Macri has inherited a very heavy situation. The protectionism of President he has done damage that favored his opponent: think, for example, of the meat market, which was completely destroyed. In 2005 Argentina was the third largest meat exporter in the world, today the thirteenth behind even the small Uruguay. The Pampa had become a social shock absorber but many companies went bankrupt and started producing soybeans for the Chinese market, culling livestock and giving up a lot of manpower that poured into the cities. And urbanization traditionally leads people to vote to the right, because there is, at least initially, the feeling of being able to get better”.
This was partly the case with Macri: after a complicated 2016, GDP returned to growth in the first half of this year, albeit weakly (+1,6%); the poverty index, which had risen to 32% in the first nine months of his mandate (with 1,5 million new poor), has now fallen to 28,6%; industrial production grew by 5,1%, construction by 13%. So is Argentina on the mend?
“Yes, but it is a fragile recovery, European-style if you like, based on a drop in wages and therefore in the quality of life, and on deflationary consumption”.
And why should citizens be happy about this, to the point of voting overwhelmingly for president? Moreover, unemployment rose from 5,9% in Cristina Kirchner's latest data to 8,7% recorded in July.
“Because it was much worse before, people struggled to eat, we all remember the cartoons, the people who lived in cartoons in the very central Avenida 9 de Julio. The work created by Kirchner was in many cases parasitic, welfarist. Think again of the Pampas: first, as I said, it was a social shock absorber, now it has become a perfectly capitalist production system, with companies that are even listed on the stock exchange. This creates a more evolved and stable economic ecosystem”.
Inflation chapter. Argentina is the seventh-highest country in the world, in a ranking commanded by disaster states such as Venezuela, Congo, Sudan and Libya. Even if the trend is changing: in August monthly inflation was 1,4%, in September 1,9%, and for 2017 the IMF estimates an annual figure of 22%. Macri said that 2018 will be the lowest in 8 years.
“Macri's greatest merit is on inflation: let us remember that in the past Argentina had inflation rates of 1000%, now it is always very high but under control. Then he was also good at reopening the doors to foreign capital: he put Argentina back on the market and this pleases the country's small and middle class, as well as young people who recognize themselves in a more open country. Finally, and I say this on the sidelines, Macri also won thanks to the support of the Church".
The session ten days ago was the hardest blow to Peronism in 30 years, since Alfonsin's radicals won in 1985. However, despite having renewed half of the deputies and a third of the senators, Macri's majority in Parliament is still a dancer.
“This paradoxically works in his favor. Argentines have a very special psychology of voting, the fact that Macri does not exercise such absolute power reassures them. Moreover, he was a good governor of Buenos Aires at the time and the voters have now cleared him through customs: he also managed to make his father Franco, born in Italy and become one of the richest men in Argentina, forget. A building contractor who built an empire, but also a very controversial man”.
What did Macri do wrong instead?
“In managing relations with trade unions. The problem of work and poverty is still very strong and he hasn't mediated much. Electorally he paid, even if politically it wasn't the best. After all, he is not a pure politician: he is an engineer, a building contractor lent to politics, the governor of Buenos Aires did well and was also president of the most famous football club in the country, Boca Juniors. He's an Argentinian Montezemolo, if you will, but with more thickness ”.
After this electoral success, what is the greatest risk that Macri runs between now and his possible re-election in 2019?
“That of Bolivian and Paraguayan migrants. An issue we rarely talk about in Europe, but which is equivalent to immigration from Africa for us. An army of poor people is arriving from neighboring countries, putting a strain on the Argentine welfare system: in some cases they go to Argentina to take advantage of the free care that the health system offers. This problem is deeply felt by Argentines, as for us Europeans that of African migrants".
Do you think Macri will be re-elected in 2019? And if so, will he create a new course in South American politics, of which he will be the leader?
“I don't know if he will win again, it depends a lot on what happens in Venezuela, but above all in Brazil and on the relationship with the USA. Anything can happen with Trump, I don't exclude a new season of military dictatorships, manipulated by Washington, although obviously not with the levels of violence of the darkest seasons. In any case Macri is not and will not be the political leader of South America: the last one was Lula, now every country has its own story”.
