Baradel and Moyano, union support for Kicillof/Dolores Ripoll
Axel Kicillof ended the innuendo stage. Yesterday, after opening the door a little more each day to the possibility of being a candidate again, he said it with all the letters. It was entrusted to the will of the people of the Province, but before that, this launch surely had a decisive endorsement from Cristina Kirchner.
The vice president was not physically in the Legislature. But she did not deprive herself of making a strong gesture in her absence: she sent the Treasury Attorney, Carlos Zannini, one of her extremely trusted men as a kind of guarantee, in case she was needed.
Kicillof returned that gesture in spades. He spoke of the “proscription” of the vice president and the attempted assassination suffered by the head of the Senate last year when she entered her home. It was even for more: he strongly vindicated Cristina’s management of which he himself was part of in his last stretch as Minister of Economy.
That first strong political data provided other elements for the analysis. Kicillof not only confirmed that he will be on the grid for the Buenos Aires fight: he also showed the will of a candidate. He stopped at some passages of the speech to confront the opposition in some twists and turns between spicy and humorous. The chapter that he dedicated to the educational issue was an example of this. He claimed that in his management there was not a single day of unemployment and ruled out that it was a gesture of friendship or political affinity of the unions. He said that it was a product of the work together with the unions, the decision that wages not lose against inflation and the investment in schools. From one of the boxes, enthusiastic applauded Roberto Baradel, who stood next to other union leaders who have also been supporting Kicillof’s re-election such as Hugo Moyano or the state Fabiola Mosquera (UPCN) and Oscar De Isasi (ATE).
In a three-hour speech, Kicillof tried to explain different aspects of his administration and in practically each of them he sought the inevitable comparison with the administration of María Eugenia Vidal. That will surely be one of the basic guidelines of the electoral discussion that the Governor launched and that he will deepen as the campaign runs.
The confirmation of the candidacy gave way to other gestures. Empowered, Kicillof made a strong defense of the questioned Minister of Security, Sergio Berni.
The juiciest thing about the reference was not the fact that he said that crimes fell during his administration. The Governor congratulated himself on having maintained the same security team since he took office. It turned out to be a very clear gesture of support for Berni and an unequivocal message to a group of PJ mayors and legislators (several of them present at the ceremony) who unsuccessfully lobbied to force the minister’s removal.
This gesture hides another issue that has, beyond the internal message of the Frente de Todos, connection with the electoral: it is the initial kick for Berni to become a key piece of the campaign in the inevitable crossovers that will come with the opposition. in terms of insecurity.
Two other Kicillof references were very juicy. One was addressed to the President when he asked for “better distribution of income” and that salaries beat inflation, recipes that Kirchnerism has been pushing to make a difference with the direction of the national government.
The other seemed to expose the visions that do not always coincide and the tensions contained with Máximo Kirchner and La Cámpora. When it was his turn to talk about the President and the vice president, Kicilof mentioned them by their first names. In the case of the head of the PJ, he made a distant and soulless allusion “to deputy Kirchner.”
