2023-07-15 07:53:39
One of the most striking features of this electoral period is that, since the closing of the lists, the crisis takes place simultaneously with a positive stock market mood, easily detectable in the prices of the assets. There are reasons. Argentina is cheap and, most importantly, the market has just confirmed that the ruling party’s candidate will be Massa and without formula supporters hostile to private investment: there will be no anti-capitalist options on the ballot with chances of winning. “The left is over: Sergio is more right-wing than me”, they summarized this newspaper in the management of a bank.
This presumption starts in the first place from the effort for unity that the coalition has been making ruler. Even Grabois, who started the campaign with furious criticism of Massa, ended up joining the project. “Mess with me, Sergio, don’t be such a coward”, he had surprised on May 19, when he launched the program “Human Argentina, Juan XXIII”, but his momentum was losing intensity with the days until, this week, he clarified what he would do in case of losing the primary: “If Massa wins, obviously I’m going to ask for the vote for him.” Even Andrés Larroque, marginalized from the lists after having supported the Kicillof-Magario ticket from Buenos Aires until the last moment and against the will of Máximo Kirchner, stated that he was clear that he would support the candidate chosen by the vice president. In the ruling party they now say that the differences in the province were not so serious, which is why they augur for the camporista leader a full return to campaign work: he is a militant, they explain, and that adhesion actually depends on the attitude with that it be received by someone who values those gestures of self-sacrifice, which is Cristina Kirchner. “She is going to put her hand on her shoulder and everything will be left behind,” they said in a municipality where Peronism governs.
The ruling coalition has that advantage over other parties. A word from the leader is enough to rebuild the internal order; it has what in linguistics is known as performative power. “Do it”, she will say and, almost as in Genesis, and saving the infinite distances, things will happen. It is a harmony that did not exist during the administration of Alberto Fernández, but that is reinstated in the campaign for the tranquility of the Catalan Antonio Gutiérrez Rubí, who has been complaining about the fractures between the President and Cristina Kirchner almost since 2019. The strategy adviser, who arrived in these years to evaluate departing from the project as a consequence of these disagreements, he does not rule out a pro-government victory in the second round now. His polls give Massa between 24 and 28 points of voting intention depending on how the measurement is done and when, and Grabois between 7 and 8. And he is also convinced that if Patricia Bullrich defeats Rodríguez Larreta, the chances of defeating her even rise to 80%.
Entrepreneurs and the market observe the scene without being too clear about what can happen, but confident that in any case the next one will be an administration less hostile to capital. And, in the case of Massa, even favorable. It is enough to review the behavior of the shares in recent days to notice that the ones that rose the most are those with the best relationship with the leader of the Renewal Front. Between Friday June 23, when he surprised with his application, and Monday the 26th, the following, Edenor, distributor of Vila, Manzano and Filiberti, rose 16% on the New York Stock Exchange and 17% on the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange. And that of the Macro bank, headed by Jorge Brito, 9% and 7%, respectively.
Nothing that has not happened on other occasions and with different candidates or protagonists. On Monday, November 22, 2015, the day after Macri’s victory over Scioli, the action of Mirgor, a group led by Nicolás Caputo, “life brother” of the former president, began an upward journey in the Buenos Aires square that was not interrupted. until July 29 of the following year. There were 8 months in which it rose no less than 275%.
It is true that not everything ends up always turning out as the market supposes. But the mere existence of these bets on assets related to power highlights what Argentina’s greatest challenge is: becoming the country in which the best competer wins. A true liberal democracy. What has been happening up to now is the opposite and has increased with price controls and stocks: the investor’s luck depends on what he gets from the official. A corporate democracy in which “specialists in regulated markets”, as Repsol defined Eskenazi, are powdered gold.
There are more graphic examples than others. Lopez Murphy and the auditor Juan Jose Calandri (Civic Coalition) this week made requests for a report on the AySA contract in which Filiberti, owner of Transclor and close to Massa and Malena Galmarini, was left as the only bidder. The suspicion of those who complain is that the tender is made to measure. But what happens when it is the system itself that depends on the discretion of the official? There are, for example, multinationals that have heard in the last three years from the Ministry of Commerce the recommendation to substitute imports by buying products from Transclor. The objective seems laudable: take care of currencies and reserve access to the single exchange market for other operations.
It is understandable that there are businessmen in a hurry to meet with the candidates or find out at least how they think. Several investment funds have contacted Milei’s team these days. On Tuesday, during a lunch for just a few, a leading real estate developer asked Patricia Bullrich if an eventual presidency was not going to lead her, like Macri, to “harm the industry” with an exaggerated economic opening. “We are going to have an intelligent integration with the world, we are not going to be naive,” the candidate replied.
Argentina needs to overcome it is locked in by founding a new order that transcends electoral circumstances. As the analyst Claudio Zuchovicki says, with Massa in the formula, and unlike Vicentin’s time, the market interprets that private property is not at stake. It is a modest certainty that does not guarantee the degradation of that system, which is crony capitalism, something that grows as the crisis becomes structural. The day after the 2019 presidential primaries, with the victory of Alberto Fernández and Cristina Kirchner, the share of Banco Galicia, one of the most representative of the panel, plummeted from 35 to 17 dollars. It continued to drop until it touched $3 in 2022 and recovered this year, with the latest rebound, which left it again at $17. It is still the level of that run, half of what it was worth days before. The path of Argentina in recent years is that, gradual and descending, one or two steps per government.
Conocé The Trust Project
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