Argentina: The Rise of La Campora

Summary

A year and a half after the death of former Argentine President Nestor Kirchner, current President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is pushing old guard politicians out of power and moving friends of her son who are involved in the La Campora youth movement into power. The gradual replacement of technocrats with young ministers personally loyal to Fernandez is helping change the political and economic landscape in Argentina. By unseating the team that drove Argentina's policies for the last nine years, Fernandez is creating the opportunity for greater policy shifts and the potential for more instability in Argentina's regulatory environment.

The Evolution of Fernandez

Fernandez succeeded her husband Nestor Kirchner as president in 2007 with the intention of alternating the leadership position in the coming years. Fernandez thus entered office in a close working partnership with her husband, who was understood to be serving as the behind-the-scenes political operator during Fernandez's presidency. He managed the relationships between the regime and key political players such as General Confederation of Labor leader Hugo Moyano, provincial governors and influential mayors.

Their immediate inner circle of technocratic political advisors — known as the Penguins in homage to Kirchner's Patagonian heritage — was extremely close-knit during this time. They united behind the Kirchner model of state economic interventionism, an ideology rooted in the reign of former Argentine President Juan Peron that relies on harnessing the political power of the working classes to undermine elite power structures and redistribute national wealth.

When Kirchner died in October 2010, Fernandez became the sole decision maker, and since then she has had a series of public spats with members of her government and key political figures. Fernandez had a very public break with Moyano that has led to a fracturing of the labor groups. Cabinet Chief Juan Manuel Abal Medina Jr. is rumored to have less contact with Fernandez and is becoming less involved in political decision making. Planning Minister Julio de Vido has been sidelined in favor of the new, young secretary of political economy, Axel Kicillof, in negotiations with Spanish-Argentine energy company Repsol YPF over increasing production. Kicillof's role has been particularly controversial due to the range of powers the young secretary has been given over an issue that will have a significant impact on the future of Argentina's energy sector.

Fernandez and La Campora

As Fernandez began to break away from the Penguins after Kirchner's death, the La Campora youth movement has gradually begun to rise in stature under the leadership of Fernandez's son, Maximo.

La Campora is a Peronist movement named after Hector Campora, who was a staunch supporter of Peron. Campora served as president of Argentina for less than two months in 1973 when Peron was in exile. After using his position to bring Peron back to Argentina, he yielded the presidency to Peron and became the leader of the Peronist youth movement. Kirchner supporters revitalized the movement in 2003 and it would be further reinvigorated in 2008 when protests broke out over agricultural export taxes.

Loosely organized under the leadership of a committee of six, La Campora has representative groups throughout Argentina. The groups help mobilize support for Kirchner-approved candidates, protest provincial governments that stand against Buenos Aires' policies and work to recruit youths all over the country through schools and open meetings.

The group reports to Maximo, who has been a main figure in the movement since it was founded in 2003. Maximo works closely with Fernandez to set the political agenda for the group, and he is personally close to the six-member board. The group has recently garnered attention for using La Campora member Jose Ottavis' position on the Buenos Aires provincial legislature to manage the tense relationship between the popular Buenos Aires Gov. Daniel Scioli and the Fernandez administration, according to a report by La Nacion. La Campora also took a stand against the Santa Cruz governor, who attempted to enact provincial budget cuts that were deemed contrary to the Kirchner model.

Maximo himself has been rising in prominence as a political operator, and rumors have intimated that Fernandez may support him in a bid for the governor's seat in Buenos Aires or even as her successor in the 2016 presidential election. In the meantime, Maximo's closest contacts in La Campora have been moving into key positions within the Argentine government. Some of these moves were made prior to Kirchner's death. However, prominent La Campora members like Kicillof have recently taken the lead on significant policy changes, including new restrictive media laws. These La Campora members include:

Santiago Aragon, 35, who became head of the Federal Authority of Audiovisual Communications Services in March, which put him in a position to help implement new media laws.
Ignacio Saavedra, 38, who became the government representative of the Federal Committee of Radiodifusion on the National Executive Power in March and was already the assistant manager of Channel 7 news. This post is in charge of helping apply new media laws.
Mariano Recalde, who Fernandez appointed president of the Argentine airlines Aerolineas Argentinas and Austral Lineas Aereas in July 2009 at the age of 37, one year after the companies were nationalized.
Axel Kicillof, 41, who was appointed as secretary of political economy in December 2011 and has largely been seen as a counterbalance to Planning Minister de Vido and Secretary of Internal Trade Guillermo Moreno.
Rodrigo Rodriguez, who was appointed subsecretary of public communication in February. In this important role for new government media controls, Rodriguez will be responsible for controlling the amount of advertising the state buys from newspapers, which makes up a substantial portion of newspaper revenue.
Hernan Reibel Maier, a childhood friend of Maximo, reports to Rodriguez and also took his post at the end of February.

In early 2012, the movement also made inroads into the Foreign Ministry when Foreign Minister Hector Timerman forced the retirement of a number of officials, including 16 ambassadors, and replaced them with La Campora members.

Implications

While shakeups in government circles are not unusual, it is notable that Fernandez appears to be introducing an entirely new cadre of political advisers to her inner circle. Kirchner created his political platform with the help of his hand-picked technocratic advisers. Those individuals persisted in roles of influence past his presidency, but it appears that with his death that influence is waning. This fact alone signals a potential shift in Argentine policy.

Fernandez appears first and foremost to be building a circle of advisers that she can personally control, when their youth and direct lines of loyalty to Fernandez and Maximo are taken into account. Certainly this has caused a media furor — Argentine newspaper La Nacion has been particularly outraged. This emergence of a new political elite with no ties to the old guard means that there is new thinking in Buenos Aires that will drive decisions on a number of serious economic questions. The current debacle surrounding the potential nationalization of Repsol YPF shows that key policy goals, such as raising oil production, are likely to be handled through tough action.