RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Something happened in Miami after meeting with Donald Trump at his country club Mar a Lago. Perhaps it was the conviction of the former U.S. president to be a candidate again in the 2024 elections. Or some light went on during the trip, worried about the internal dispute taking place in all the opposition spaces, which includes his own party, the PRO.
The fact is that Mauricio Macri surprised with his announcement: “I include myself in the list for next year’s presidential dispute,” he said as soon as he set foot in Buenos Aires. He confessed at the Happening restaurant in Costanera. “The other sector aspirants assumed it as the ladies and gentlemen they are,” commented a consulted source. And added another key fact: “It is obvious that if Mauricio is a candidate, nobody will compete with him in the PRO. He is the head of the space, and we will all stand behind him”.
For one of the guests at lunch, Macri prolonged a discussion at that table about how to define the party’s presidential candidacies. However, in his entourage, they insist that “in no way it should be ruled out that he will play, and it seems to me that the meeting worked as a warning”.
The advance does not mean that his candidacy is certain, but he is genuinely evaluating this possibility, which he had denied until now. So much so that the president of PRO, Patricia Bullrich, even said in an interview before the tour in the United States that “Macri will not be a candidate”.
UNPRECEDENTED MOBILIZATION
Although he lost the election, Macri did not leave through the back door like Trump. He suffered the shock of a PASO (Primary, Open, Simultaneous, and Compulsory Elections) that he did not expect. Still, he recovered towards the first round, reaching a 41%, similar to the floor that the right-wing coalition Juntos por el Cambio has had in the electoral preferences since then.
He did so through mobilizing his electorate in different parts of the country, unprecedented in this political force, appealing to feelings and values rather than to the poor economic results of his administration.