​A truly political tangle: PJ-Pichetto as Macri’s vice-presidential candidate

ARGENTINA - In Brief 11 Jun 2019 by Esteban Fernández Medrano

In our last monthly report (“Political tango or political tangle?”) we echoed the view that in case Massa abandoned Alternativa Federal to join forces with the Kirchnerists (as is expected to be announced any moment), that Macri might consider the possibility of widening the Cambiemos´ coalition - in particular, to invite some of the more conservative, non-Kirchnerist, Peronists, such as Urtubey or Pichetto, to become his Vice-presidential candidate. While such move was therefore in the cards, Macri´s announcement this afternoon that PJ Senator Miguel Angel Pichetto would be his Vice-presidential candidate, surprised nevertheless. It sent a shock wave through the political ranks similar to the announcement that Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner would run “only” for vice-president. Pichetto is a traditional, historical Peronist. He entered the National Congress in 1993 as Lower House Deputy during Carlos Menem’s mandate and was voted into the Senate in 2001, where he stayed up to now. Although by itself, he does not rank very high in the polls and his inclusion in Cambiemos does not necessarily imply that a significant number of other PJ members will follow, as head of the PJ block in the Senate he is well known to be a savvy negotiator, which might be helpful. Of course, the main objective of his inclusion is to increase the acceptance rate of Mauricio Macri among the non-Kirchnerist vote in a second-round election. The aim is to increase the chance of Macri to beat the Fernández/Fernández tandem even if they include the support of Massa. The key to assert if this will work is whether the rest of the Cambiemos alliance and the Cambiemos voters accept this last-minute shif...

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