Still missing after all these days
The big newspapers, meaning its reporters, in Argentina enjoy direct access to President Mauricio Macri. You can tell because they quote him in half off the record stories that are very revealing. Through this you learn that Macri is not especially concerned about the electoral impact of the disappearance of Santiago Maldonado, missing since August 1 when he took part in a Mapuche indigenous demonstration in Chubut province.
The president is reportedly also outraged that the Maldonado case is being treated as a “forced disappearance” orchestrated by the state through its security forces and that there is pressure calling for the resignation of Security Minister Patricia Bullrich. The ruling coalition’s theory is that the Kirchnerite camp and drug traffickers are in league to try to force Bullrich out. All this could well be true. Macri can stand behind the Border Guards all he wants. But Maldonado, 28, is still missing.
The developments in the Maldonado case will not stop. On Friday federal judge Guido Otranto, who had been leading the investigation into the disappearance, was removed from the case by an appeals court that accepted a challenge filed by the Maldonado family. The missing man’s family has called Otranto’s investigation, which included a new search of Mapuche territory during the week, ‘clownish.’ But the judge was ousted for making comments to the press.
Otranto, who had told the press that what most likely happened to Maldonado was that he had drowned In a river, will be replaced by a judge who will now dedicate himself exclusively to investigating what the courts are indeed describing as a forced disappearance. The new federal judge handling the case is called Gustavo Lleral and is based in the Patagonian city of Rawson.
Macri will remain supportive of the Border Guard and Bullrich. Yet the outcome of the investigation is unpredictable. On Friday reports said that there is now a conversation between Border Guards involved in the August 1 crack down purportedly saying that Maldonado had been held in a vehicle of the security forces. Yet is now appeals that this was simple an informal conversation in court betweeen Border Guards.
The president has been emboldened by fresh polls that show that his popularity ratings are holding up and that his coalition could win in Buenos Aires province in the midterm elections scheduled for October 22. But the week ended with a new judge in charge of the Maldonado case and speculation about the young man’s possible abduction.
Still the election is not solely about what happened to Maldonado. Other investigations will also not go away including the one into the mysterious death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman — just as he was making his accusation that then president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner had masterminded a plan to cover up Iran’s alleged involvement in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires.
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A new inquiry has come to the conclusion that Nisman, found dead in his luxury apartment with the bullet to his head, did not commit suicide in January 2015 but was murdered. According to Elisa Carrio, the Macri coalition Lower House candidate in Buenos Aires City, Nisman was murdered by members of the CFK administration.
You could end up coming to the conclusion that if the Maldonado case is not a factor then why is Macri even talking about it? And why is Fernandez de Kirchner so worried about the Nisman case?
There is every possibility that Maldonado and Nisman will be electoral issues, say, in 2019. But for now the president is sticking to his idea that the vote on October 22 will not be about a missing young man.
Then what will the election be about? A total of 29 secondary schools have been taken over by students who oppose an educational reform, which they claim is designed to send them on training courses to companies to gain job experience. The occupations have been going on for four weeks but the city government is suddenly scrambling to deal with the fallout. BA’s Education minister met with student union leaders. But Buenos Aires Mayor Horacio Rodriguez Larreta, a key Macri ally, has vowed to push ahead with the reform claiming that it has majority backing.
Macri’s coalition garnered nearly 50 percent of the vote in the August 13 primaries in Buenos Aires City. It lost in Buenos Aires province against CFK by only 20,000 votes. Now the president is confident that his candidates will defeat the former president next month. The polls show CFK trailing the president’s coalition. A shift in strategy has seen the former president granting interviews. She also headed a rally in Greater Buenos Aires. There is speculation about a debate between the main candidates, but no confirmation that such a debate will take place.
The problem for Fernández de Kirchner is if voters perceive her shift as a desperate bid to avoid defeat in her bastion, Buenos Aires province. The Kirchnerites technically won the primaries in Buenos Aires province and Santa Fe province in August. But if Macri’s coalition manages to win those two big provinces next month then all the talk will be about the president’s re-election in 2019.
The Peronists seem to be in disarray. Juan Carlos Schmid, a leader of the General Labour Confederation (CGT) was forced to deny that he had called on workers to vote for CFK in October. Schmid instead said that he was backing Florencio Randazzo, CFK’s former Transport and Interior minister who is now running on a separate ticket away from the former president and garnered nearly 600,000 votes in August. A divided Peronist camp, which some finding the Kirchnerite option unacceptable, is what’s making Macri’s coalition look so good.
CFK meanwhile said at a rally that the election will be about electing a second senator. The winner in BA province will take two Senate seats and the second most-voted ticket one. Fernández de Kirchner said that voters should choose her running-mate, former Foreign minister Jorge Taiana over Gladys González, who is the number two senatorial candidate on Macri’s coalition in Buenos Aires province.
The polls favour the ruling coalition. Still how wise is it for President Macri to consider the Maldonado case as simply another ordinary crime investigation that has been blown out of proportion by the “red circle” elite? Time has in the past redefined many developments in Argentina. History here is a rolling stone. Exactly where and how the Maldonado case will conclude is unknown.
