PASO or Rupture: Cristina-Kicillof on the Brink of Fire

The dispute between Cristina Kirchner and Axel Kicillof has crossed a red line. The dynamic of the fight as mere tug-of-war ahead of a last-minute negotiation leading to a unity list has entered crisis. After the event in Parque Lezama and the reactions triggered by Máximo Kirchner’s speech, a rupture is more likely than an agreement. This time it’s serious: everything is on fire.

With different motivations, both camps are already working under the hypothesis that there will be an open confrontation, either in primary elections or with competing separate lists. The latter is a scenario that could favor a first-round victory for Javier Milei’s administration. It is the result of an unresolved leadership dispute and conflicting strategies.

What changed since the farewell to Indio Solari, when the Buenos Aires province government and La Cámpora worked together and successfully mounted an operation that the national government had avoided? After months of going in circles, Kirchnerism activated its political strategy for 2027, which includes making the rupture with Kicillof explicit. It is an attempt to prevent the governor from taking Cristina’s electorate while sidelining the former president and her loyal leaders from his presidential project.

The three-pronged strategy debuted with the event in Parque Lezama, which consolidated Máximo Kirchner as the operational leader of Cristina’s camp. The first component is to rally forces not around the slogan «Free Cristina» but behind a potential candidacy of the former president, who is currently barred from running due to a ban on holding public office. Publicly, no Kirchnerist leader will deviate from this script: the candidate must be Cristina, and to achieve that, the proscription must first be broken.

The second ingredient of the strategy is the launch of a programmatic agenda with two fundamental pillars: a tough renegotiation of the debt with the IMF and a structural reform of the Judiciary to end mafias and selective persecution of political leaders. These are issues that give content and clarity to Cristina’s candidacy proposal, serving as inputs in discussions with other Peronist actors and as potential conditions for a future opposition government.

The third component, perhaps the most important, is an offensive to break the strategy that Kicillof has been deploying, which consists of ignoring Cristina’s leadership while questioning the conviction against the former president and remaining within Kirchnerism as a place of belonging. Close to Máximo Kirchner, they say the offensive was triggered by the inaction of Kicillof’s camp in response to criticism of the former president by Buenos Aires city legislator Berenice Iañez, close to Andrés Larroque, in the days before Lezama. Just a pretext, respond in La Plata.

To «unmask» Kicillof, explain in Kirchnerism, it is necessary to draw a dividing line between those who are for Cristina and those who are against, without half measures. «Axel accumulated nothing outside of Cristina’s vote. We cannot allow him to take our electoral base while fighting with all of us and giving us nothing. It must be clear that his fight is with Cristina. The one breaking unity is Kicillof,» says a leader who was on the balcony at Lezama. «They still follow the logic of submission or betrayal,» respond in the governor’s office.

At that point, among others, lies the impossibility of an electoral agreement between Cristina and Kicillof. To strengthen their own camp and accumulate forces at the start of the electoral process, Kirchnerism needs to reinforce the idea that Kicillof is a traitor and an ingrate, incapable of visiting Cristina during her detention. How can they later ask for votes for that same person?

Not only that: to give meaning and competitiveness to a potential PASO or a confrontation with separate lists, part of Kirchnerism seeks to associate Kicillof’s figure with Alberto Fernández and Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, a task in which leaders like Guillermo Moreno and Sergio Berni are already working. Present on the balcony at Lezama, both have already publicly encouraged the rupture with Kicillof, in line with a reading attributed to Cristina that indicates that the 2027 election will be a four-quarter election.

From Kicillof’s perspective, an agreement with Cristina that makes him the unity candidate has also been practically ruled out. The magnitude of the public confrontation and the failed experience of the Frente de Todos government suggest that, even if they win the election, the understanding would blow up in less than 48 hours. «They would not accept a unity candidate who does not recognize Cristina’s leadership and does not hand them the governorship, and that will not happen because it would repeat the Alberto Fernández scheme,» says a Buenos Aires minister.

Therefore, for Kicillof, the best scenario is a PASO, where, through votes, the change of command in Peronism is staged. If the PASO are eliminated, they will try to have an internal election. In his inner circle, there is confidence that this fight will be won by a good margin. Other leaders working on his presidential project do not hide their doubts. They say with concern that Kicillof has not expanded his camp, that his message has not yet penetrated society, and that he does not generate political events that set the agenda.

In a hypothetical PASO scenario, who would be Kirchnerism’s candidate if the former president remains disqualified? Not a few mention Sergio Massa, in a scheme of at least three pre-candidates, where a figure like Juan Grabois could take votes from the governor on the left. Alchemies in the air, while the administration moves toward a new candidacy for Milei.

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