Dissidence will be treated as treason

For the first time since late 2023, Javier Milei has been fully displaced from the spotlight, relegated to a supporting role. 

Epic battles, missile barrages and the prospect of nuclear world war have pushed the self-proclaimed “anarcho-capitalist” leader’s cultural crusade down to a second level. Gains in the battle against inflation have become naturalised by a population split between those who can enjoy the elixir of a strong peso in the form of overseas travels and acquisition of durable goods and those who can barely make ends meet. Milei, whose popularity remains intact despite enacting massive budget cuts, is credited with having stabilised the economy and will probably be rewarded with a healthy harvest in electoral terms come October, but in an information economy where he has reigned supreme for nearly two years, the resurgence of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner to the central role of the socio-political field of play must be disconcerting for the libertarians. The graphic nature of the war between Israel and Iran, along with US President Donald Trump’s global protagonism, completes the cocktail that has dominated the public discourse as of late.

Cristina is trying to squeeze as much out of her reclaimed role as the national superstar of the political ecosystem in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s confirmation of her guilty sentence in the ‘Vialidad’ public works corruption case. The two-term ex-president and former vice-president was in a clearly descending curve in terms of political impact, or at least she was since she broke with the president she hand-picked to lead the winning presidential ticket in 2019, Alberto Fernández. As that Peronist administration began to implode, Fernández de Kirchner tried to distance herself from Alberto’s power structure, blocking Economy Minister Martín Guzmán’s policies and writing public letters criticising the president and his cabinet. Cristina knew that she was an impediment for the union of her political space, deciding to step aside and have Alberto lead the electoral ticket to effectively win the election over Mauricio Macri. Yet once she became disillusioned, she attempted to regain centrality and ultimately created the conditions for a gridlocked government considered a failure by a majority of Argentines.

Milei’s 2023 victory over Sergio Massa meant that Governor Axel Kicillof in Buenos Aires Province had become the de facto leader of the Peronist opposition. The governor was Fernández de Kirchner’s protégé but he was an outsider within the realms of Kirchnerite Peronism: a former Marxist with a notable confrontation with Máximo Kirchner and his La Cámpora organisation. Kicillof also counts on a public perception that he is honest, escaping the general opinion that the Peronists more broadly and Kirchnerites specifically are incredibly corrupt. Spanning back to his days in charge of the Economy Ministry, he has never had a good relationship with the traditional and conservative power structure of provincial Peronism.

The governor was waging a civil war of sorts from the province in order to force his former political boss to let go of the “pen” – a metaphor for the true seat of power in politics, be it the capacity to distribute budgets, posts, or spots in an electoral ticket. With the support of many municipal leaders from the Peronist bastion of the ‘Conurbano’ (or ring of districts encircling Buenos Aires City), he was attempting to take the reins of a non-Kirchnerite strain of Peronism that could attract other sectors in order to build an “anti-Milei” coalition with his sights set on 2027. Cristina and Máximo were resisting however they could, banking on the star power of the former president while acknowledging that her magnetism was greatly diminished. They were musing on the idea of having Argentina’s most important political leader of the past two decades run for an insignificant seat in the Provincial Legislature in order to siphon off votes from Kicillof and the Milei-Macri coalition (LLA-PRO) that sought to exhibit a show of force ahead of the national bout in October.

This agenda runs parallel to Cristina’s legal battles. The Supreme Court held a Damocles’ sword over her head in the form of a final ruling in the ’Vialidad’ case. Starting with Cristina, everyone knew the ruling would be negative for the Kirchnerite leader. The real question was one of timing: when would the Supreme Court justices make their decision? CFK has been raising the flag of “lawfare” and proscription at least since 2019 – ultimately, she announced her candidacy once she had a clear indication that the ruling would come before the deadline to formalise candidacies, therefore barring her from participating. The moment the Supreme Court justices chose to make their ruling is suspicious as it puts them in the centre of the scene, feeding her theory of political persecution – a tough look, particularly for a Judiciary which attempts to fly below the radar. 

Be it as it may, Fernández de Kirchner has regained political momentum. A leader as experienced as she knows there is no time to waste, as the window of opportunity could quickly close. At a time of popular clamour and supposed fragility, she will try to unite Peronism around her. Dissidence will be treated as treason, limiting Kicillof’s margin of manoeuvrability. The massive marches in support of CFK held in Buenos Aires and throughout the country brought together several of the most important leaders of the fragmented Peronist front, but not all. Some, like Kicillof, were forced to show up. Others were moved by opportunity (Massa, who has been slyly nicknamed “ventajita,” which roughly translates to “petty advantage,” by Macri). 

It is extremely unlikely that Fernández de Kirchner will manage to keep the momentum going for long enough to engineer an electoral comeback in the style of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil. Her aspirations appear much more mundane, from securing leading spots in electoral tickets for her political allies, to holding certain key districts from the libertarian onslaught in October. The President’s political strategist, whether it is controversial advisor Santiago Caputo or Presidential Chief-of-Staff Karina Milei, will suggest continued confrontation with CFK throughout the election. That could explain their radio silence in recent days, allowing her to take the spotlight and divide society even further. Yet their own internal rifts could limit their electoral upside, as “Caputito” and the “cake-maker” fight for dominance under Milei’s nose.

From Fernández de Kirchner’s perspective, the economic plan engineered by Milei and Economy Minister Luis “Toto” Caputo will crumble under its own weight. As analyst Carlos Burgueño explained in a recent article in Perfil, the Peronists are banking on a social uprising similar to what occurred in Chile in 2019, toppling the government of Sebastián Piñera and giving way to Gabriel Boric. They must be ready to seize that opportunity, she regularly tells her followers. That would imply the grandeur of finding and accepting an ideal successor who, if polling is accurate, cannot be her son Máximo. If her recent history tells us something, nobody will want to take that spot if the final outcome is to end up like Alberto.