If there’s one thing Sergio Massa, 50, doesn’t lack, it’s ambition. If this characteristic allowed him to survive in the volatile Argentine politics, where he has been since he was 18 years old, it also turned him into a true chameleon, who did not hesitate to wear the shirt that was necessary to continue advancing towards his true desire: to be president of Argentina. .
The current strategy, which he has been managing in recent months amid the political attrition and economic disarray of the government, is to be Itamar Franco’s FHC, who organized the economy with the Real Plan, and from there, to run and win the election scheduled for next year. The Brazilian model, however, will face several obstacles to succeed in Argentina.
In less than a month, in which Argentina had three economy ministers, the peso has devalued by 40% and inflation is rising to 90% annually. This Wednesday (3), Massa is expected to announce policies to stop the soaring “blue” dollar, regain the confidence of agribusiness, hold back high tariffs and supermarket prices and, with that, contain growing dissatisfaction. popular. The task entrusted to him by the person who truly rules the country today, Vice-President Cristina Kirchner, is to unify militancy and Peronism, so that, next year, power does not fall into the hands of the opposition.
Anyone would be frightened by the very difficult mission. But not Massa, whose image has already gone viral in memes in which he appears dressed as Superman. Having squandered all the chances he had in previous positions and elections, and they were not few, he accepted the task from the boss he had criticized so much in the past. If Massa seems to be the last card in the Kirchnerism deck to stay in power, this also sounds like the last opportunity for Massa not to disappear completely from politics.
It is like this unfathomable chameleon that will embrace not only the Ministry of Economy, but also that of Agriculture and Productive Development. In practice, he will be a prime minister, further draining the credibility and capacity for action of Alberto Fernández, Cristina’s previous bet, which failed.
Massa opened up space between the two with a lot of lobbying and a lot of pressure. He reached the summit causing the departure of other heavyweights from Peronism who could not bear to be in a government with him, in the case of Gustavo Béliz and Daniel Scioli.
Massa was born into a middle-class family, the son of a Peronist father and an anti-Peronist mother, hence perhaps his ability to jump from one side to the other when it comes to ideologies. He studied at a Catholic college and studied law. He didn’t graduate until 2013, when he passed the last subject he was missing. He also did not work in the area, since at 18 he was already active in the UCD (União do Centro Democrático), a right-liberal party.
He did not last a year in the group, when he became enchanted with Peronism, the party for which he held his first position, being elected deputy for the province of Buenos Aires. His national projection came even between the years 2002 and 2007, when he was ahead of Anses, the body that administers social security in the country. In an Argentina punished by the severe economic crisis of 2001, Massa promoted policies to help retirees and fought for the early retirement of more than 70,000 unemployed workers who had contributed for 30 years.
From there, it was easy to win the mayoral election of the department of Tigre, in Greater Buenos Aires. The town, on the banks of the homonymous river, was experiencing a real estate boom and Massa went from being the hero of the elderly to the candidate of wealthy businessmen who bought, at the time, swampy land to transform into the famous “countries”, or closed condominiums.
In 2008, when then-President Cristina Kirchner’s conflict with the countryside erupted, she dismissed her chief of staff, who was, who would have thought, Alberto Fernández, and called Massa to the post. The attrition was fast, in less than a year, he was already out of the government and publicly attacking the former boss. He returned to Tigre, formed his own party, the Frente Renovador, also a Peronist, and began to articulate his way to the Casa Rosada.
In the 2015 presidential campaign, he based his strategy on criticizing Cristina, but Mauricio Macri ended up winning, with Massa coming in third. In 2019, it was the turn to launch the campaign attacking Macri, but it didn’t work either. Disheartened because his candidacy did not take off, he withdrew. The option was to approach Kirchnerism again, with the green light from Cristina, who sees him as a good political articulator.
Among his qualities are being very active and tireless, contrary to what the current president has shown. In all these years of public life, he has an immense agenda and gets along well with businessmen from different fields, including those in the media. He is friendly, conciliatory and has many friends in various parties.
Among his flaws, the possibility that he will change his mind at any moment, and a difficulty in clearly expressing his ideological position, if he has one. He is said to be on Macri’s left and Cristina’s right, and that as a minister he must be a liberal orthodox, although that depends on what the boss asks of him. He also counts against the amount of political defeats he has already racked up and a 70% disapproval, according to Poliarquía.
What is certain is that, as of this Wednesday (3), a new government begins in Argentina, with very few resources and high hopes.
