National deputy Máximo Kirchner, who had already been interviewed by journalist Maru Duffard the previous week, was interviewed again this past week for more than an hour by Ernesto Tenembaum, suggesting a desire to raise his profile. Both interviews, particularly the second, reveal certain Peronists' persistent fascination with President Javier Milei in contrast with ex-president Mauricio Macri, whom they seem to consider worse than the libertarian, demonstrating how many anti-republican and autocratic genes Kirchnerism shares with Milei.
It also says something about Argentines, most of whom are clustered at the two extremes of the polarisation and prefer the same thing: the (hypothetical) promise of efficiency offered by a líder decisionista [a leader who rules decisively] over democracy as a system of rules. That shared gene has yet to learn that society will never achieve lasting efficiency if it weakens the institutions that should guarantee it.
Máximo said that, if his side returned to government, it would review every investment project approved under Milei’s Régimen de Incentivo para Grandes Inversiones (Large Investment Incentive Regime, or ‘RIGI’) scheme, one by one. His position echoed comments made two months ago by La Rioja Province Governor Ricardo Quintela at an event attended by Kirchner. Quintela said investors should know that a Peronist government would review the actions of Javier Milei's administration and that “whatever needs to be expropriated, we will expropriate.”
People close to Sergio Massa say they warned Quintela to moderate his remarks if he did not want the broader national Peronist movement to publicly contradict him. Would Massa do the same as Máximo? In the first interview, Máximo recounted that when Massa became economy minister and the de facto overseer of ex-president Alberto Fernández's government, he offered Kirchner a ministerial post. This was amid rumours of a possible internal ticket to challenge Kicillof – dubbed ‘MaMá’ after an agreement between Massa and Máximo – with the latter's mother giving her blessing.
Different rumours have circulated in recent days about a ticket that could challenge Kicillof in a primary: Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Gerardo Zamora. Under this scenario, Cristina would run as a candidata testimonial [a candidate who stands ostensibly for office but is expected to step aside, if elected], allowing Zamora to take the lead after a possible victory in the primary.
Outside of Santiago del Estero and the neighbouring provinces, most Argentines do not know who Zamora is. Yet before Fernández de Kirchner decided to anoint Alberto Fernández as her presidential candidate, only eight percent of the population knew who the former Cabinet chief was.
Cristian Buttié, the director of CB Consultora, recently outlined the possibility of primaries in which the former president would not be barred from running as a testimonial candidate, unlike in the PASO primaries, in which the electoral courts would prevent her from doing so.
More complicated still are reports that, even if the PASO remained in place, Cristina could have a window of a couple of months to pursue her candidacy if a judge from, say, Santa Cruz Province, were to authorise her to stand symbolically while remaining under house arrest, regardless of whether she received a favourable opinion from the United Nations Human Rights Committee, where she is seeking help. Zamora is once again being mentioned as Fernández de Kirchner's chosen candidate for such a scenario.
Zamora is a unique case: he has served four terms as governor of his province, his first two between 2005 and 2013 and his next two between 2017 and 2025. In between, his wife Claudia Ledesma Abdala served as governor, and he has now left his former provincial Cabinet chief Elías Suárez in the post.
For a quarter of a century, his side has secured electoral victories with between 60 and 70 percent of the vote. Municipal elections were held in Santiago del Estero on August 2, and Zamora's Frente Cívico won again, taking 66 percent of the vote. La Libertad Avanza came second with just eight percent.
Zamora's advantages include his record as a successful governor, his base in Argentina's interior (which is far removed from Kirchnerism's Buenos Aires metropolitan-area centrism) and his Radical party background. He was president of the Juventud Radical political youth organisation in his province and vice-president of the Juventud Radical’s National Committee, which could help bring non-Peronists into an electoral alliance against Milei.
Massa, who is eight years younger than Gerardo Zamora – exactly two presidential terms – could weigh up whether it would be better to act as another candidate's sherpa and wait for time to detach his public image from the rise in inflation that happened during his tenure as economy minister. But he is waiting expectantly for the economy to culminate in a crisis during Milei's final year in office, bringing the political timetable forward and, by comparison, erasing the negative memory of 2023.
Kicillof, the natural candidate – and supposedly the one Javier Milei would prefer to face in a run-off – could prove a boomerang for the libertarians if the economy spiralled out of control in 2027. Kicillof differs from Massa and Zamora in being more ideological and, as a result, more inward-looking. It is said that Peronism governs because it “knows how to distribute power,” whereas Kicillof does not want to repeat Alberto Fernández's experience and wants a government made up of his own people. As ever, whether that is a virtue or a flaw depends on the extent and the circumstances.
Peronism marked this latest October 17 Loyalty Day with five separate rallies, but those who know the movement's spirit argue that these differences should not be mistaken for a rupture. When the moment comes, they say, Peronists know how to unite, set aside their grievances and close ranks to transform themselves into a máquina de poder.
Now they have the first move and must show whether they can eliminate or suspend the PASO primaries from the 2027 electoral calendar.
