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### Viewing cable 09BUENOSAIRES1235, C) ARGENTINA: CFK'S FIRST TWO CABINET CHIEFS SAY KIRCHNERS'

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Reference ID | Created | Released | Classification | Origin
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
09BUENOSAIRES1235 | 2009-11-20 16:04 | 2010-11-30 16:04 | CONFIDENTIAL//NOFORN | Embassy Buenos Aires

`

    VZCZCXYZ0035
    OO RUEHWEB

    DE RUEHBU #1235/01 3241653
    ZNY CCCCC ZZH
    O R 201653Z NOV 09
    FM AMEMBASSY BUENOS AIRES
    TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 0071
    INFO MERCOSUR COLLECTIVE
    RHEHNSC/WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHINGTON DC
    RUCQSAB/USSOCOM INTEL MACDILL AFB FL

` `

    C O N F I D E N T I A L BUENOS AIRES 001235

    NOFORN
    SIPDIS

    E.O. 12958: DECL: 2034/11/20
    TAGS: PGOV PINR AR
    SUBJECT: (C) ARGENTINA: CFK'S FIRST TWO CABINET CHIEFS SAY KIRCHNERS'
    SHELF-LIFE WILL EXPIRE IN 2011

    REF: BUENOS AIRES 1026; BUENOS AIRES 301

    CLASSIFIED BY: Tom Kelly, DCM, DOS, EXEC; REASON: 1.4(B), (D)

    ¶1. (C) Summary: Over the past six weeks, we have held several
    conversations with President Fernandez de Kirchner's first two
    Cabinet Chiefs, Alberto Fernandez and Sergio Massa. Both believe
    that the Kirchners, despite their recent political successes,
    cannot win re-election in 2011. They disagree on whom is next in
    line: Fernandez thinks that the next President will be Vice
    President Julio Cobos, while Massa believes that Senator Carlos
    Reutemann will prevail. Both ex-Cabinet chiefs are (separately)
    plotting their futures in a post-Kirchner political landscape.
    Massa expanded on earlier comments to us (ref a) on life with the
    Kirchners, describing ex-president Nestor Kirchner as a "monster"
    and a "psychopath." End Summary.

    ¶2. (C) We have had several conversations with the first two
    Cabinet Chiefs of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (CFK), Alberto
    Fernandez and Sergio Massa. The Ambassador had an introductory
    meeting with Alberto Fernandez, who served as Cabinet Chief in both
    Nestor and CFK's administrations, on October 28, and DCM lunched
    with Fernandez on October 2. The Ambassador and DCM also had
    dinner with CFK's second cabinet chief Sergio Massa and his wife,
    city councilor-elect Malena Galmarini, at the home of Massa's
    former Casa Rosada aide, businessman Jorge O'Reilly, on November
    ¶12. In each of these conversations, the two prominent Peronists,
    who during their tenures in the Casa Rosada worked every day with
    the Kirchners to run the Argentine government, were quite frank in
    expressing their estrangement from the Kirchners and their
    pessimism about the first couple's political prospects.

    Alberto and Massa Agree: Kirchners Will Lose in 2011

    ¶3. (C) Massa said that the Kirchners have no chance to capture the
    presidency in 2011. When asked to estimate their chances, Massa
    replied, "zero." He also discounted the view that the Kirchners
    would extend their rule through Chavez-style governance. Massa
    said that, for all of its problems, Argentina is not Venezuela.
    Its society remained too literate, too middle class, and too
    "temperate," and its economy is far more complex and diverse than
    Venezuela's oil monoculture. Argentina, he said, would not abide
    the Kirchner's attempts to consolidate power through more
    autocratic rule. The result of their hardball tactics after the
    midterm elections, he argued, was even more negative ratings in the
    polls.

    ¶4. (C) Fernandez predicted that Nestor would be the Kirchners'
    presidential candidate in 2011. He claimed that Nestor has a
    better reputation for competence than CFK. Fernandez told the DCM
    that his soundings on CFK's potential run for re-election
    invariably provoked reactions of alarm and exasperation.

    ¶5. (C) But Nestor cannot possibly win, continued Fernandez,
    comparing the former president to Carlos Menem circa 1999. He said
    that, like Menem ten years ago, Kirchner could hope for no more
    than 20 percent of the votes in the first round of the presidential
    election. These voters, he continued, are Kirchner
    "fundamentalists" whose votes reflect ideological affinity or
    association with the various political machines (controlled by
    piqueteros, labor leaders, etc.) that remain loyal to the Kirchner
    project. Fernandez said that, because Kirchner at this point in
    his political career has zero attraction to independent voters, he
    could expect to win no more votes in the second round of elections
    than he would in the first. Fernandez predicted that Nestor would
    run and CFK would increasingly govern from the Left, as that "is
    the only constituency that remains to them." He added, though,
    that such a strategy was doomed to fail -- "the Left on its own
    can't elect anyone to the Presidency in this country," he said.

    Alberto and Massa Disagree on Next President

    ¶6. (C) Massa identified Santa Fe Senator Carlos Reutemann as the
    likely presidential winner in 2011. He said that Reutemann's
    strategy of lying low was prudent, not a blunder or sign of
    indecision as often portrayed in the press. With Reutemann quiet,
    the Kirchner machine was focused on pummeling Vice President Cobos
    and Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri. The onslaught, he argued,
    would damage both of those potential opponents to a Reutemann
    candidacy. When the race really begins, Reutemann would be
    well-placed to obtain the Peronist nomination and steamroll the
    rest of the field. Massa said that the Peronist race would not
    begin in earnest until May 1, 2010, when he said five large
    Peronist rallies would mark May Day for the first time in years.

    ¶7. (C) Alberto Fernandez identified Vice President Cobos as the
    next president of Argentina. Fernandez noted that Cobos continues
    to be the most popular politician in the country, and is conserving
    his advantage intelligently. He expected that Coalicion Civica
    leader Elisa Carrio, the runner-up in the 2007 election and a
    bitter rival of Cobos, would run in the first round and win a
    maximum of 12 percent of the vote, deflating the Vice President's
    first-round numbers, but Cobos would come out on top. "It's his
    election to lose," concluded Fernandez. He took issue with Massa's
    view that Peronists would prevail once they united behind a
    candidate. Fernandez, a long-time Peronist activist who headed the
    party apparatus in Buenos Aires city for many years, said that his
    party only controls the loyalty of 38 percent of the electorate.
    Given the Kirchners' continuing control over the party apparatus,
    the Peronist candidate, even if it ends up being someone with a
    last name that is not Kirchner, would not appeal to non-Peronist
    voters in 2011. The party's presidential prospects in the coming
    election were therefore, in Fernandez's view, poor.

    Massa: Nestor is a Monster and Psychopath

    ¶8. (C) Massa was scathing in his criticism of the first couple,
    especially Nestor. Though he made light of press reports that he
    and Kirchner came to blows at the campaign bunker in the pre-dawn
    hours after their mid-term defeat last June, he called Nestor "a
    psychopath," "a monster," and "a coward" whose bullying approach to
    politics masks a deep sense of insecurity and inferiority.
    (Massa's wife registered such alarm at these uninhibited comments
    that he asked her to "stop making faces at me.") He disputed the
    argument that Nestor deserved credit as a savvy tactician,
    describing the ex-president as blunder-prone and so convinced of
    his own brilliance that he was certain to keep making mistakes.
    (We've heard similar comments from Fernandez on Nestor's faltering
    political judgment -- ref b.) He said that Nestor could not
    relate to others outside the narrow gauge of his own political
    ambitions: "Kirchner's not a perverse genius," Massa concluded.
    "He is just perverse."

    ¶9. (C) Massa described his twelve-month term as Cabinet Chief as
    an ordeal, as he struggled to deal with a controlling presidential
    spouse and a "submissive, withdrawn" President "who would be much
    better without Nestor than she is with him." He said that, during
    his tenure at the Casa Rosada, he decided to do the Oprah-like
    daytime TV show hosted by grand dame Mirtha Legrand. On the set
    minutes before the show's taping began, he received a call from
    Nestor instructing him to walk off the set because the apolitical
    Legrand "was an opposition figure." Massa told him he would do the
    show unless his official boss CFK, who was travelling abroad,
    instructed him otherwise. He then received three successive calls
    from Cabinet members pleading with him not to do the show. Massa
    did not follow their advice.

    Both Focusing on Post-Kirchner Future

    ¶10. (C) As for his own plans, Massa confirmed that he plans to run
    in 2011 for governor of Buenos Aires province, which could pit him
    against midterm winner Francisco de Narvaez, incumbent Daniel
    Scioli and labor strongman Hugo Moyano. Massa said that he will

    announce his candidacy on the third week of January, the week when
    (largely vacationing) Argentines buy the most newspapers.
    Fernandez also commented on the Buenos Aires race, opining that
    Scioli's political moment had passed. Calling the governor "a nice
    guy," he observed that Nestor had used him (by grabbing him as his
    slate-mate in the province during the midterms) and then cast him
    aside. "Scioli is trapped, and he knows it," Fernandez said.

    ¶11. (C) Fernandez remains politically active as well. He told
    the DCM that he is talking to many political figures within and
    outside Peronism, including Cobos and the fellow would-be Peronist
    kingmaker, ex-President Eduardo Duhalde. Within the party, he
    expressed particular interest in the 40-year-old governor of Salta
    province Juan Manuel Urtubey. He said that, despite his belief
    that Cobos is likely to win the presidency, he is counseling
    Urtubey to throw his hat in the ring. He says that the campaign
    strategy would be to nudge Nestor out in the first round for second
    place, and then emerge as the Peronist candidate in the run-off
    against Cobos. (Comment: It appears that Urtubey, once regarded
    as a reliable Kirchner ally, is listening. He agreed to host
    Fernandez in a much-photographed visit to Salta on November 14,
    fueling speculation that the two were plotting a presidential run.)

    Comment: Common Views, Divergent Paths

    ¶12. (C) Massa and Fernandez have much in common, from their
    unique experience in CFK's cabinet to their active roles in the
    burgeoning anti-Kirchner movement within Peronism. They are both
    generally pro-American in orientation. They do not, however, work
    together very closely, and their futures seem quite different.
    Fernandez, 50, is low-key and content to operate in the background
    while others take the spotlight. The most that he seems to aspire
    to is success in behind-the-scenes political kingmaking, which
    could restore him to his former status as the country's most
    influential political consigliore. Massa, 37, the younger man by
    more than a decade, has more ambitious plans. He hopes to win the
    Buenos Aires governorship and, eventually, the Argentine
    presidency.
    MARTINEZ

`