An old Renault Clio was parked near the central square of a village of the province of Buenos Aires. Is covered with dust, and if someone decides to pay attention to see inside the remains of a long trip: insects on the windshield, a mate with yerba and warm clothes packed in the back seat. But no time for details. The Clio low Axel Kicillof, candidate, peronist governor of the district, more rich, more populated (16.6 million) and largest in Argentina. The connection with people is immediate. Kicillof returns the hugs and takes pictures with a wide smile. He then gives a short speech, repeated hugs, upload it to your Clio, and part to another square, in another town. When you finish your election campaign, Kicillof will have travelled 90,000 kilometres of roads.
Each kilometre is charged at the polls. In the general elections of last Sunday, Kicillof won 52% of the vote, more than 1.4 million votes away from the incumbent governor, María Eugenia Vidal, the policy best valued macrismo. The campaign of low cost of Kicillof was a revelation for the gurus election. The millions invested in advertising, the openings in a rush of works and large meetings, Kicillof responded with a painstaking work, slow but persistent, which lasted almost three years. “Others are in a helicopter and don’t get to see what happens in every corner of the province,” he once said to justify such a road trip. With casual clothes, a face that does not look 48 years old and that has and hard work, Kicillof climbed up to the top of peronism, a movement that can both elevate how to eat, without notice, to their children more dilectos. But Kicillof is not a makeshift.
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Kicillof is a typical porteño middle-class intellectual. He was born in the aristocratic Recoleta district of the argentine capital, of father a psychoanalyst and mother, a psychologist, and was educated in the public system. But not at anyone, of course. Did the secondary at the Colegio Nacional Buenos Aires, an institution which since 1863 has formed the elites of argentina. The young graduate studied then Economics at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA). His first political affiliation was in a grouping that is called Silly but Not Both (TNT), from where it resisted in the early nineties to the hegemony of militant radical youth of Gaza residence. In the UBA forged a potent academic career, with research, nine books and hours as a teacher. In that environment, university he met his partner, Loneliness Quereilhac, with whom he has two children. His doctoral dissertation, entitled Genesis and structure of the General Theory of Lord Keynes, deserved a 10. Since then, Kicillof responds to those who are branded as “marxist” which is considered a “keynesian” which advocates the importance of the State in the economy.
The leap of Kicillof from the academy to the first line of the policy occurred in 2009, during the first Government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (2007-2011). His friend Mariano Recalde was by then director of the newly nationalized Aerolineas Argentinas and summoned him to occupy a place in the direction of finance. “At some point Cristina Kirchner knows it and puts it in Economy as deputy minister Hernán Lorenzino. Had just died, Nestor Kirchner, who was the one who decided the economic policy, and orphan the economy of a driver, Kicillof will be the person that best accommodates the ideas of Cristina Kirchner, related to a greater intervention of the State”, explains the journalist Ezequiel Burgo, author of The believer: who is Axel Kicillof?
From the Ministry of Economy, the promotion of Kicillof was meteoric. The defense closed, which he did in 2012 nationalization of YPF, the oil company that was in hands of Repsol, placed in the first line of his political boss, a privilege that very few staff had. When Hernán Lorenzino presented his resignation a year later, no one doubted that this young promise who occupied the second place in the line of the Ministry would be the heir. Merits are not missing. “Kicillof was a person much better trained in economics than the people surrounding president Cristina Kirchner. Already long before had put people out of their computers in lockers in the conduct of the Government. And when it goes Lorenzino is the one that is in the best position to carry forth the ideas of Cristina,” says Burgo.
expand photo Axel Kicillof and the former president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner attend a campaign rally in La Plata, in the final stretch of the campaign. Telam
the management of Kicillof were the plans of promotion consumption and also the stocks exchange rate, an emergency measure to control the leakage of foreign exchange and that now it was reclaimed by the Government of Mauricio Macri. Also the cancellation of the debt that Argentina has with the Paris Club since 2001, and the cessation of payments with the so-called vulture funds, though as a minister Kicillof always tried to honor that debt. If you did not, was because the ruling of a judge of the united States prevented him from doing so.
When Kirchner left the power, Kicillof became the deputy and began to tour the province in the famous Renault Clio, renamed Kicimóvil. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner finally decided to bless his candidacy in Buenos Aires. The former president had yielded his place in the nation in favor of Alberto Fernandez and claimed the gesture with the province. The barons sought in the district to a man’s own and looked to Kicillof with suspicion, as if it was an intruder that needed to withstand because he was anointed by fernández de Kirchner. The former president reminded them then that Kicillof was the best he was going in the polls. And no one dared to contradict.
Kicillof then became a political thoroughbred. He abandoned his long speeches numbers and appointments, and hit the road. With the people cultivated the face-to-face, as those candidates of people that remember the names and family histories of every one of their voters. Kicillof made campaign, grew up in the polls and 90,000 kilometers after the start of the long march stayed with the trophy higher. Peronism, finally, it surrendered to his feet.
