Buenos Aires (EFE)
“I want to ratify the decision that I will not be a candidate in the next election and I do so convinced that we must enlarge the political space for the change that we initiated and that we have to inspire others with our actions.”
Former President of Argentina Mauricio Macri
In recent months, while several leaders of Macri’s coalition have stepped forward and announced their candidacy, before the October elections there will be primaries in August in which each political front will decide their final candidates, the media and analysts conjectured with what would be the decision of the former president, who in the 2019 elections lost to the current head of state, Alberto Fernández, with 40.28% of the votes.
In a video of just over 6 minutes, the former president, who was also mayor of Buenos Aires and president of the Boca Juniors club, made a parallel with the teamwork that led the soccer team to win the Qatar World Cup to explain the reason for your decision.
“Even having the best player in the history of humanity on the field (in reference to Leo Messi), the rest did not expect him to be the one to ensure victory. Each of the players fully took up the challenge. They all shone, they all suffered, they all fought and in the end they all won. The leader did not win, the team won, and if all of us Argentines win, ”he declared.
And he assured that, now, the country – which he considered to be “drift, without leadership, isolated from the world, alone” – “will never again” have “a puppet as president”, in reference to Fernández, who in 2019 was chosen by the current vice president Cristina Fernández as a candidate for president.
In the ruling party, while the president said on several occasions that he wants to run for re-election, the vice president ruled out running for election when last December she was sentenced in first instance to 6 years in prison for acts of corruption during her tenure as president (2007 -2015).
However, the clamor among his followers grows for him to opt for the Presidency again.
“Now we have to be very careful because in difficult situations we immediately go out looking for a messianic personality that gives us security. Together for Change has managed to overcome that false illusion of the individual savior,” added Macri.
For the moment, in the opposition coalition, which according to polls has strong options to return to power, faces such as the mayor of the capital, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, and former Security Minister Patricia Bullrich, announced their candidacies for the primaries.
“I am going to continue defending freedom, democracy and the values we share, as I have always done, and I will always do so by your side with the certainty that we Argentines have matured and we are not going to let ourselves be trampled on by populism any more” , sentenced Macri.
Argentine opposition highlights “generosity”
The announcement made by former President Mauricio Macri (2015-2019) that he will not run as a candidate for the Presidency of Argentina recomposes the strategy in the opposition sector in the face of the October elections, whose main candidates are the Together for the Change to Patricia Bullrich and Horacio Rodríguez Larreta.
One of the first to express herself on social networks was the president of the Republican Proposal (Pro), which is part of the largest opposition coalition in the country, -who was its Minister of Security- Patricia Bullrich, thanked Macri for his “greatness” and ” generosity”
“Mauricio Macri’s historic decision confirms his greatness and generosity. Even though he could be president again, he has prioritized the interests of our country before his own, as very few leaders have done in Argentine history, ”Bullrich wrote.
Through a video of just over 6 minutes, the former president, who began his political career as the leader of the Boca Juniors club and continued as mayor of Buenos Aires, to later rise to the Argentine presidency, expressed his decision to not be a candidate for this year’s elections.
Presidential spokesman responds to Macri
The spokesperson for the Argentine Presidency, Gabriela Cerruti, responded on social networks to the message of former President Mauricio Macri (2015-2019), who will not stand for the October elections, with a couple of messages on social networks, although she did not value your advertisement.
“Isolated from the world” was the brief text of the presidential spokesperson on her Twitter account, which she accompanied with 4 photographs, in which the President of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, can be seen together with his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva; with the French head of state, Emmanuel Macron; and in two summits of the G20 and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac).
This message responds to one of the phrases pronounced by Macri in the video in which he announced that he will not present himself as a candidate for the elections next October: “Current Argentina is difficult to recognize; we are adrift, without leadership, isolated from the world, alone”.
To complete his reaction to the opposition leader, Cerruti adds another message, in which he says “Good Sunday!” and adds the official statement from the White House, released this Saturday, which confirms the meeting that Fernández will hold next Wednesday the 29th with the president of the United States, Joe Biden.