Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Axel Kicillof gave each other a cold greeting at the event for the 47th anniversary of Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo. “They didn’t talk to each other, they seemed like kids,” the president of the organization, Estela de Carlotto, who sat between the former Argentine president and the current governor of the province of Buenos Aires, would later say.
As a backdrop to this image is the enigma of leadership in the Peronist movement, the main opposition force to the government of far-right Javier Milei. One year after the legislative elections in Argentina, the internal dispute is now being decided by the leadership of the Justicialista Party (PJ) at the national level. Cristina Kirchner, who in different positions has been at the helm in the last 20 years, is presenting herself for the first time as a candidate to preside over the PJ.
More than an internal
Cristina Kirchner is running for the November 17 election against the governor of La Rioja – in the northwest of the country – Ricardo Quintela, in a rarefied climate. Axel Kicillof, a former loyal disciple, her former Economy Minister, has not publicly supported her, something that the former president considered a betrayal. He even compared him to Pontius Pilate, who, according to the Bible, authorized the crucifixion of Jesus and then washed his hands of it. “The Pontius Pilates and the Judas in Peronism are no more,” the former president launched and accused Kicillof of endorsing Quintela’s candidacy. “The one who has to talk to Quintela is Axel, who is the one who supports him. “It is his ministers who are looking for endorsements for him.”
The Buenos Aires governor, a popular left-wing Peronist, distanced himself and stated on the social network province far from the media and networks of Buenos Aires. It is a mistake to think that this is a leader whom I ‘raise or lower’, but above all it is a big mistake to attack him. The logic of the subjugated or traitor is a logic that has entered into a crisis and has been causing bad results.”
Facundo Cruz, consultant and political analyst, tells elDiario.es what is surprising about the former president’s candidacy for the Justicialista Party. “Cristina Fernández de Kirchner seeks to be the great decision-maker of the PJ for the next elections (midterm in 2025 and presidential in 2027) and it is surprising that she is running to preside over the party, since in the past she never sought to rely on the PJ. Néstor Kirchner also shied away, but later he did run for the PJ and achieved consensus. Even when the Frente de Todos lost in 2015 (legislative elections) she represented Kirchnerist spaces.”
For Paola Zuban, political scientist and director of the consulting firm Zuban Córdoba, the internal elections are welcome because they delimit the dispute to have the last word when deciding legislative candidacies and the future presidential candidate. “It is very healthy that internal elections are held, which legitimize whoever wins and who is going to win is Cristina Fernández de Kirchner: according to the numbers of my colleagues, she has support among Peronist members of 70 to 30 (for Quintela). That legitimizes it, it will give it authority to organize the space. In Argentine society, Cristina’s positive image ranges between 30 and 40 points, being higher in the province of Buenos Aires than in the rest of the country, and depending on the electoral contexts.”
However, the internal dispute could be resolved, in the end, on the desk of Judge María Servini. Quintela revealed this Sunday the attempts by the former president’s list to suspend the PJ elections. The Rioja governor said that he received calls to convince him to accept a unity formula. The decision of the PJ Electoral Board to make official only the candidacy of Fernández de Kirchner and not that of Quintela, due to alleged irregularities in the endorsements, has led the governor of La Rioja to threaten to resort to justice.
In Cristina Fernández’s attempt to be the computer of space, tension arises with Axel Kicillof. A dispute over who exercises leadership. “Axel grew up under the figure of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, but he rose to position himself as a national figure. He was re-elected governor of the province of Buenos Aires, it is foreseeable that he will want to jump into the presidential search in 2027,” Cruz tells elDiario.es.
La Cámpora and Máximo
The coldness with which Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Kicillof treat each other is part of the disagreements within the movement. “Hopefully the internal elections will serve to unify Peronism, a very Buenos Aires-centric Peronism subject to the tensions and needs of the AMBA (Buenos Aires metropolitan area); There remained isolated provincial Peronisms with more local imprints, which do not respond to the party. The only organic Peronism is that of Formosa and Tierra del Fuego, the rest are Peronisms, some in dialogue with Milei, others with local characteristics or that tried to break away from Kirchnerism,” says Zuban. Kirchnerist Peronism governs in four of the 23 Argentine provinces – Buenos Aires, La Rioja, La Pampa and Formosa, to which Santiago del Estero, radical and ally, is added – and has the first minorities in the two chambers of Congress.
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and her son Máximo Kirchner, deputy and leader of La Cámpora, support each other in their political actions. La Cámpora, a group that was born 18 years ago and is strong in the province of Buenos Aires, where it has 12 municipalities, is the space most loyal to Cristina and Kicillof was never a pure organic. The tensions between Máximo and Kicillof have been evidenced by the assignment of positions in Argentina’s largest province.
In 2021, during the Government of Alberto Fernández-Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the conflict became explicit with the delivery of a good part of the Buenos Aires administration to Martín Insaurralde (he was appointed coordinating minister of the provincial Government), to the detriment of the circle closest to the governor. Kicillof. A scandal that involved Insaurralde on a luxury trip in Marbella a year ago led Kicillof, in his new management, to preserve his hard core in key ministries and put containment dikes in La Cámpora, at the expense of straining the relationship. with his former boss.
The look in 2027
“A maxim in politics says that to beat the king you have to kill the king,” says Zuban and adds: “Cristina Fernández de Kirchner knows it: for Axel to be presidential, he has to distance himself from Kirchnerism, it is a natural path that he will have. to continue facing 2027. I do not think that the dispute between Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Axel Kicillof will last too long.” The expert provides data on the governor’s approval: “According to a report we presented last Sunday, Axel Kicillof has a national approval of 48% and a disapproval of 50.5% and, compared to December, the positive image grew ( I had 59% disapproval and 39% approval).”
The consultant Cruz maintains that the renewal process in Peronism shows difficulties. “Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has always been a candidate in the last 20 years and her presence can be seen as a brake on the rise of new leadership. Since the return of democracy, in 1983, the cycles were 20 years. In 2001, the political generation that made the transition retired and one that rebuilt the Argentine State took over. For this political generation that is reaching its 20s, society is asking for new faces, but that change has not yet occurred. Not only is Cristina Fernández de Kirchner not retiring, she is not retiring, she is active. It is difficult for Peronism to renew.”
To all this, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s nomination to lead the PJ will take place days after the Federal Court of Cassation validates or not the six-year prison sentence issued against her by the Federal Oral Court in a case for corruption in a public work. The ruling includes a significant fact: the perpetual ban on holding public office.
Peronism, under the presidency of Alberto Fernández, has just experienced electoral defeat with Javier Milei, who became president last December. The candidate to preside over the PJ, being vice president in the Fernández Executive, made public her questions about the economic direction, especially after the legislative defeat of 2021 and the negotiations of an agreement with the IMF for the loan granted to the conservative Mauricio Macri .
A déjà vu?
The long-awaited unity of all sectors of Peronism, key to confronting the chainsaw of the far-right Milei, faces a question: could Cristina Fernández de Kirchner repeat her rivalry with Fernández with Kicillof?
“I wouldn’t think in terms of what happened with Alberto Fernández – says Zuban – since he had no position in public opinion until Cristina Fernández de Kirchner presented him as a presidential candidate. Axel Kicillof has his own electoral base because he is governor, and because he is of a different age he represents renewal within Peronism, as long as he manages to redefine an identity stripped of a Kirchnerist-camporist identity. We have to see how Kicillof maneuvers against La Cámpora, which always seeks its space for power management, especially in the province of Buenos Aires, where it has a greater territorial presence. In the rest it is marginal.”
Political analyst Cruz points out that Kicillof and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner share ideology, but the issue is leadership. “Kicillof believes that it is his time and sees a broader and more transversal construction in the background. Everything will depend on whether or not Axel decides to confront Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and differentiate himself. Alberto Fernández’s memory is very fresh, and it is feared that he will go on a path towards a similar configuration. “They ask Axel to come out and stand out and not become a new Alberto.”
The president of Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo acknowledged that she acted as a mediator for Kicillof and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner to participate this Wednesday in the Abuelas celebration in the city of La Plata. Casting a cloak of pity, Estela de Carlotto said: “They are not enemies, we are in the same country and they are both extraordinary people.”
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