Ambitious, tightrope walker… and twisty. If everyone agrees on one thing, it’s that the person in charge of managing the battered country’s finances is capable of anything to win Argentina’s presidency, which will be contested in the 2023 elections. A country that signed up for the heart attack is confident it’s right
At the moment he is more popular in Argentina than Leo Messi, there is no media outlet that does not want him on their front page every day, nor is there a citizen or businessman who does not keep him in mind. It’s Sergio Tomás Massa, who turned 50 last April. He is neither a footballer nor a singer. He is a very prestigious lawyer, but above all he is a politician. On the wet paper that Argentina is today, Massa is the man entrusted to President Alberto Fernández with a diabolical task, and this is where all the verbs fit: save, stabilize, reassure, fight. Put the one you want, because what is being talked about is the Argentine economy, one of the most indebted countries in Latin America and where the economic crisis, which is affecting the whole world, seems to be living at ease.
Massa is the ‘super minister’. That’s how they baptized him from the moment he accepted a ministry in which his predecessor, the economist Silvana Batakis, stayed for just 24 days. Massa has already surpassed that short-lived record. It’s been over a month. Brave as no one, he took responsibility not only for the Argentine treasury, but also for the Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Productive Development portfolios, which then had their ministries and made their own decisions. The challenge ahead, a year before the presidential election, cannot be digested with a partner. He is well aware that Argentina’s economy is under constant pressure, but the first thing he said upon retiring as president of Congress was, “I am not a savior. Politics does not need saviors, but servants.
Argentine journalists claim that the best dictionary definition for Massa is that he is a curvy character. He has dreamed of power since his childhood when he was part of the liberal-conservative UCeDe (Unión de Centro Democrático). At the age of 27, he was already a deputy in Buenos Aires. At the age of 29, he entered the ANSES (National Social Security Administration). At the age of 36, he was chief of staff to the minister of Cristina Fernández. At the age of 41, he became mayor of the city of Tigre, where he settled with one goal: to grow in his political career.
For this he did not want to experiment and live together with all possible fronts and ideologies, whether they be liberals, Peronists or Kirchnerists. It didn’t matter. He was with them and against them, but until now he has never been able to realize his dream of leading the country from the Casa Rosada, none other than. But he’s hugely ambitious, capable, hyperactive and a tightrope walker, they say in Argentina, where if he inspires mistrust of anything, it’s because he could do anything to reach the presidency, a career in which he doesn’t. was successful. in the 2015 elections, when Mauricio Macri was the winner in the second round, taking only 21.39% of the vote in the first round.
“My political career has long been characterized by challenges. It happened to me that all the time, more than enjoying my responsibility and my moment, I thought about what was to come. I suppose my frustrations and worries have taught me to do what I had to do right and not think about tomorrow,” Massa realized last year, in words published by Infobae.
Some sources assure that the success or failure of their job of stopping inflation (7.4% in July, the highest since April 2002), poverty approaching 40%, creates jobs, raises wages for those on lower incomes, budget deficit decreases and debt does not rise will depend on their launch as president in the next 2023 election.
At the moment, Sergio Massa is fulfilling some of the promises he made when he arrived at the Ministry of Economy, and although he has been able to develop very little of his program in five weeks, the demand is forcing him to accelerate them as much as possible to not to lose the high confidence that his appointment has aroused in the markets. As soon as he took office, he warned that July and August would be the hardest months to contain inflation, but in September he expected the price curve to recede. He has asked ministers to make efforts to keep spending under control, and ordered cuts to education and productive development, which he preferred to define as ‘reposting’.
In this Argentina that has experienced almost everything -dictatorship, war, corralitos- and there are ten exchange rates for the dollar, Massa resorts to everyone’s solidarity to improve a situation to which the country seems to have become accustomed. “We need to understand that Argentina needs a path where businessmen, workers and states come together to generate value and development for our people and our people.” And he asks those who keep or save pesos or dollars under the mattress to convert them into work, production and “into a good that will allow them to preserve value and build a future” for their children.
In a month’s time, Massa made a 25,000 million pesos transfer benefiting knowledge economy companies, promised to increase the number of construction workers from 430,000 to 450,000 and has just denied an immediate devaluation of the peso. At the same time as announcing a 15.53% increase in child benefits, an allowance to compensate the poorest for three months, he presented his statement in which two houses and a car appear. The entire estate of the current key man in Argentina’s economy would amount to $40,000 blue, at an exchange rate of 291 pesos.
Source: La Verdad
I am an experienced and passionate journalist with a strong track record in news website reporting. I specialize in technology coverage, breaking stories on the latest developments and trends from around the world. Working for Today Times Live has given me the opportunity to write thought-provoking pieces that have caught the attention of many readers.
