“I’m still in the race,” ratified the Minister of Education in the last hours. The head of the Health portfolio does not decline his nomination either, while the hard wing of the party pressures Jorge Macri to be the only one to compete for the head of government.
Horacio Rodríguez Larreta has two key definitions ahead of him. The president must resolve before next weekend what the format of the election in the City of Buenos Aires will be this year. On the other hand, he must finally resolve who will be the PRO candidate on Buenos Aires’ soil. While the hard wing of the party, with Mauricio Macri at the helm, presses for Jorge Macri to be, the head of government delayed the decision. Soledad Acuña and Fernán Quirós do not get off and continue campaigning.
“ Obviously, I am still running as a pre-candidate, working within the framework of Horacio Rodríguez Larreta’s project as President. And, from that place, supporting absolute change,” Acuña said on CNN Radio this Saturday.
It was the second ratification in 48 hours: on Thursday, in another radio interview, the Minister of Education confirmed: “I still have the intention of being head of Government to guarantee this transformation project that we have been doing for many years in the City”.
Acuña had shown himself on Tuesday with Rodríguez Larreta whom he accompanied in a “coffee” with neighbors and merchants from Chacarita, a campaign modality that the Buenos Aires president has made routine. Last weekend Jorge Macri accompanied him in Almagro.
“We have to have a good candidate to compete in the PASO of Together for Change. We have to offer the best candidate we have within the PRO, that’s why I’m competing because I think I have the conditions to do so. But we have to try to get to that situation with a single candidate,” Acuña said this Saturday.
“Today we are three pre-candidates and we have to agree and show that we can be different, but that we can discuss without confronting, without fighting, and without throwing everything out the window. And offer society so that they can vote for a good PRO candidate who can beat the rest of the competitors, ”he added.
At the center of the Buenos Aires management agenda in the last week was Fernán Quirós, who accompanied Rodríguez Larreta in the announcement of the “mega-operation” (as the Buenos Aires administration calls it) that the City is carrying out to prevent dengue. The Minister of Health also expects public support from the leader of the Civic Coalition, Elisa Carrió, which could stress the internal opposition.
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The doctor was left on a tightrope as a candidate after Mauricio Macri publicly announced that he will not run for the presidency in the next elections. The ex-president got off, but did not run from the Juntos por el Cambio intern, and redoubled the pressure for Rodríguez Larreta to choose his cousin and former Vicente López mayor, Jorge Macri, as the only PRO candidate to compete for leadership of Government against the radical Martín Loustau.
Larreta publicly admitted that, at the end of the road, the party can only have one candidate who goes to PASO Buenos Aires, but decided to postpone the decision at least until after Easter.
Whether or not he defines the candidate, next week will be a week of definitions. Before next Thursday, the Head of Government will resolve whether the Capital will vote for its local candidates on the same date as the presidential election (PASO and generals) and, in that case, whether two voting systems will coexist on that day simultaneously.
Martín Lousteau, who maintains a very good political link with Larreta, demands “equal conditions” for all aspirants to the Buenos Aires Government, respecting the Electoral Code of the City: split the elections or that all candidates for head of Government can accompany the list of all the candidates for President, which could result in 20 PvC ballots in the darkroom.
There could be an intermediate solution: a split, but in the voting system, with a single ballot for Buenos Aires offices and the traditional sheet ballot for national offices, and that the two elections take place on the same day.