National lawmaker Máximo Kirchner will join the Argentine delegation travelling to China next week, which will be led by Economy Minister Sergio Massa. The trip is scheduled to begin on May 28, returning on June 5, taking in the cities of Beijing and Shanghai.
The trip comes at a politically relevant time, just after the deputy’s mother, Vice-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, addresses a May 25 rally in the Plaza de Mayo. Speculation over the ruling coalition’s possible presidential candidates is rife: Massa is a possible competitor, as is Kirchner’s La Cámpora ally, Interior Minister Eduardo ‘Wado’ De Pedro.
This trip will be the first that the vice-president's son will take outside the country since 2000. He will be using his passport for the first time in two decades. His late father, Néstor Kirchner, only used his passport for the first time to travel abroad after he being elected president of Argentina.
A direct flight to China takes around 28 hours, so that there will be plenty of time for Massa and Máximo to talk about Frente de Todos’ electoral future and the repercussions of the event in Plaza de Mayo, at which Fernández Kirchner is expected to drop hints about who should be the ruling coalition’s candidate.
Massa is a key ally within Frente de Todos and intends to make his specific leadership count in negotiations for lists at the national level and in the key battleground of Buenos Aires Province.
Party slates are set to be defined on June 24 – once the duo return from China there will only be 20 days left in which to define who the candidate will be. Some definitions will come out of that trip.
* This article was altered on May 29, 2023 to correct an error regarding Máximo Kirchner's previous trips abroad.
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