CFK calls Domínguez, Espinoza, Aníbal Fernández to take part in the August primaries
Lower House Speaker Julián Domínguez, Cabinet Chief Aníbal Fernández and La Matanza Mayor Fernando Espinoza will compete against each other in the ruling Victory Front (FpV) primary for governor of Buenos Aires province.
The move, blessed by President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, was announced by the Cabinet chief last night during a brief press conference in at Government House.
Fernández de Kirchner “has decided that the gubernatorial bid for Buenos Aires province will be decided by open, simultaneous and mandatory primaries between Julián Domínguez, Fernando Espinoza and myself,” Aníbal Fernández told reporters, in reference to the so-called PASO primary scheduled for August 9.
The three pre-candidates officialized their decision after meeting with the president at the Olivos presidential residence. They will now have to choose and announce their respective running mates before tomorrow midnight’s deadline to register electoral tickets.
The Cabinet chief also said that the president’s Chief-of-Staff Eduardo “Wado” De Pedro, a 38-year-old member of the La Cámpora Kirchnerite youth organization, who was rumoured to have a central role in the election, would not run as lieutenant governor candidate.
“The three of us wanted him (as running mate), so my feeling is that he will not participate” in the election, Fernández said, suggesting that such a decision was reached in Olivos yesterday.
Security Secretary Sergio Berni, who until recently said he would maintain his bid, and ANSES social security agency head Diego Bossio (versions had him as re-considering an earlier decision to step down) are now definitely out of the race, but have solid chances of joining either Fernández, Domínguez or Espinoza on the ticket.
Earlier yesterday, the president received a letter where Interior and Transport Minister Florencio Randazzo declined the offer to run to succeed Daniel Scioli in the province .
Randazzo’s decision — which, in turn, came after the shock announcement that Fernández de Kirchner’s key aide Carlos Zannini would join Scioli on the presidential ballot — left Kirchnerism without a major bet in the country’s largest district, which makes up for 38 percent of the national vote — a problem shared by all political parties.
Polls conducted so far, many of which are suspected to openly favour a specific contender, say no single candidate will reach more than 26 percent of the vote in August. The absence of a clear winner — and Randazzo, many in the government believed, would have been one — may have prompted this decision through which, according to Fernández, “citizens will be the ones to nominate” the ruling party’s official contender.
A strange proposal
During last night’s brief press conference, Fernández also said that the possibility of running as a Kirchnerite contender in the PASO “also applied for presidential pre-candidates,” suggesting that the Scioli-Zannini bid may not be the only “official” FpV ticket voters will find when casting their vote in the PASO.
“The president has not closed that door. Whoever wants to run as a presidential hopeful under the FpV seal may register before Saturday,” Fernández said.
Asked on whether this meant that the president actually wanted Randazzo — who declined his presidential candidacy earlier this week — to revive his bid, the Kirchnerite official simply stated: “It’s not that the president wants or does not want. If someone wants to run as candidate, he just can do it.”
Who is who
Domínguez, 51, served as Fernández de Kirchner’s Agriculture minister from 2009 to 2011, when he took office as a national lawmaker for Buenos Aires province. He has been speaker of the Lower House of Congress ever since.
Earlier this month, Domínguez criticized Fernández over a series of minor but “disagreeable statements” made by the Kirchnerite official. He also dismissed allegations of being the Pope’s candidate, in reference to his good relationship with Jorge Bergoglio, whom he met at the Vatican last year.
The Lower House speaker has good ties with Quilmes Mayor Francisco “Barba” Gutiérrez and national lawmaker Darío Giustozzi, who left Sergio Massa’s Renewal Front time ago. He has criticized Scioli in the past, but recently backtracked from those statements, stressing that he believed the Buenos Aires governor to be “a good guy.”
Aníbal Fernández, a former FpV senator, was sworn in earlier this year as Cabinet chief after completing a short term as the president’s chief-of-staff. A staunch Kirchnerite, he is no stranger to the post, since he served as CFK’s Cabinet chief between 2009 and 2011 following the resignation of Massa — now a presidential hopeful for the Renewal Front.
Espinoza emerges as the representative of the Justicialist Party (PJ) orthodoxy. He is not only the head of the PJ chapter in BA province but also rules the province’s most populous district, home to more than 907,000 voters. The Greater Buenos Aires strongman enjoys an excellent relationship with Scioli and his Government Minister Cristina Álvarez Rodríguez.
Source: Buenos Aires Herald
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