RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – President Mauricio Macri and his successor, Alberto Fernández, embraced for a few seconds. They were watched by many of their ministers, and a crowd gathered outside the Luján Basilica, the largest shrine in honor of the Virgin Mary in Argentina.
It was a small gesture, but its political significance enthused the Church, which organized the meeting. Since the return to democracy in 1983, the transfers of power in the ‘Casa Rosada’ (“Pink House”) have been contentious. The most memorable dates back to a fairly recent time. In 2015, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner refused to hand over the chair to Macri. Four years later, his political successor, Alberto Fernández, is leading a transfer of power devoid of resentment.
This time, Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro took over the task of confrontation. According to Clarín and Folha de S.Paulo, the ultra-right-wing president has refrained from sending a representative to the inauguration ceremony, which will take place on Tuesday, something that had not occurred since 1989.
After the election results, Brazil’s president did not congratulate Fernández and said he would not attend the ceremony. He was contemplating sending Citizenship Minister Osmar Terra as a representative but dropped the idea after the visit by Chamber President Rodrigo Maia and a delegation of deputies to Buenos Aires last week. At the meeting with Fernández, Maia conveyed a message of pragmatism and cooperation from the Brazilian government.
A “hug for peace”
The picture could not be better. A sunny day, with the imposing Luján Basilica (located 60 kilometers west of Buenos Aires) in the background and the outgoing president and the newcomer accompanied by all their main advisors. After Mass, Archbishop Jorge Scheinig called for an embrace in the name of peace.
“I am very happy to have shared the homily today in the Luján Basilica with Mauricio Macri and political leaders from different sectors. Argentina needs everyone to work together. That is why we must put an end to this rift that has inflicted so much damage on us,” Alberto Fernández later wrote on social media.
An observant reading finds Fernández’s messages directed at Macri. The “joint work” was a request for support to the opposition in a Congress in which Peronism will have to divide power with Macrism. The reference to the “rift” between Peronists and Macrists recalls that it was Macri himself who endorsed it during his mandate, convinced that the fear of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner favored him with votes.
The former president was not in Luján. Neither was the current governor of Buenos Aires, María Eugenia Vidal, nor the mayor of Buenos Aires, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, the only Macrist leader who was re-elected. Both the governor and the mayor will compete for the leadership of the opposition to the outgoing president as of Tuesday.
“We are all aware of what is coming, what we are already living in the world, in our Latin America. We need to promote a culture of convergence (…) We must do everything possible not to be tempted to destroy the other,” said Archbishop Scheinig. Macri and Fernández listened before the final hug.
The photo will remain as a postcard of the new Government’s inception, although it is not certain that its relevance will be sustained over time. Fernández blamed Macri for leaving a “devastated” economy and asked him to be straightforward in his assessment of his government. For the outgoing president, his four years in power have laid the foundations for finally sustained growth, despite the fact that Argentina has three consecutive years of declining GDP, the peso has lost 60 percent of its value, the foreign debt has become unpayable and, for the first time since the 2001 crisis, poverty has broken the 40-point barrier.
Macri’s optimism reached its height on Saturday during a farewell event in Plaza de Mayo. In front of tens of thousands of people, Macri pledged to his followers that he will become an advocate “for democracy, institutional quality, and our freedoms”, values takes as his own, while he questions in Kirchnerist Peronism, which he considers authoritarian and corrupt.
On a small stage that the Government has set up in front of the Rosada House, Macri said he will operate “a constructive and not a destructive opposition”. He then said goodbye with tears in his eyes before a crowd that shouted “we want her arrested,” in reference to Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, now vice-president, suspected of several cases of corruption. Tuesday will be the next government’s first day, and the sincerity of gestures will finally be ascertained.
Source: El País