Horacio Rodríguez Larreta in Caja Negra: “If I go to a runoff with Massa, I win”

Horacio Rodríguez Larreta arrives at Julio Leiva’s interview cycle as the first of many candidates who will pass in the framework of the 2023 Elections. The Head of Government of the City of Buenos Aires wants to be President after eight years of management. His view of the present, his beginnings in politics and the projection of an eventual government in a hand in hand that had everything.” I got angry with the president because he’s a. It’s a very fucked up insinuation. You’re messing with something that doesn’t go. First he has no hold of anything, ridiculous at the time. If you look at the archives of that moment, the subject was not mentioned. Ridiculous, I think it’s bad,” he said of his cross with the President over the death of the inventor of the coronary bypass. “Let’s not hand over power to those who ran PAMI when Favaloro committed suicide,” Alberto Fernández had declared earlier this year. Larreta had been appointed as one of PAMI’s auditors in the Alliance government. On this subject, he elaborated: “I arrived at PAMI, which was an emblem of the corruption of the end of Menemism, and there was not even a paper. There was no record of anything, they had emptied everything. So we had no fucking idea what had to be paid, what not, the debt. So, you sit there and start the phone: ‘I’m from the clinic and they owe me $1000, from the other’s clinic, from the pharmacy, the other… It was an avalanche of debt. A decree or a resolution was made, and they said, ‘Well, everything that started until December 10, ’99 goes to a commission that is going to analyze the outstanding debt and the claims. And we take care of regularly paying the flow from here to forward and putting it in the box. It was a phenomenal quilombo at the beginning to sort out each other’s contracts.” There was a contract with the Favaloro Foundation that went to review and from then on we paid everyone equally for the service. In that period I never met Dr. Favaloro. I mean, it’s not like he called me five times complaining. I learn the tragic news of his passing. And nothing, it was there. A letter was published from him explaining the reasons and speaks of the corruption of the PAMI social works but as a very generic thing. A pity. Everything was there. At that time nothing came up. Some time later I had already left the PAMI and they began to chicanearme, but it may have been two years … It’s not that it was a topic at the time. They began to tell me that Favaloro had committed suicide because he did not pay PAMI,” he said. The issue of rent is a matter of market, supply and demand. In a country where there is no mortgage credit for a long time, much less is built than it should be, given the need for housing in the City of Buenos Aires. As there is no mortgage credit here, much less is built than in another comparable city. What’s going on?: People are going to live in Greater Buenos Aires, further and further away. The problem of rents is derived from the lack of construction, from the lack of increase in supply in the face of an increase in demand. That’s the problem in Argentina. The problem is not the rent, the problem is the lack of mortgage credit that limits, I do not tell you that it prevents why not, but it limits construction and demand continues to rise, “he began. To turn that around you need “stability. There is no possibility that there is mortgage credit in pesos, obviously, because people earn in pesos, you will not have a credit in dollars, if there is no stability. If there is no stability, there is no credit. It is that there is no supply because there is no construction and there is no construction because there is no credit. Then comes the additional factor of platforms, such as Airbnb. It is a problem in every city in the world. It is very difficult to control. If the city grew, if there was credit, the Airbnb distorts you a bit, usually in the central areas of the cities more than elsewhere. Mid-level departments up, generally not.” I’ve been fighting it. Nothing was easy for me in life, I always have to row, fight. I am not gifted. I am of the famous theory of 10,000 hours. I believe in heart and effort, effort and dedication. The people who change history are the 10,000-hour people. The people who dedicate it dedicate work to it. When I said I wanted to be president, they told me I was crazy, that I didn’t have charisma. I don’t pretend to be what I’m not. I do not believe in charismatic leaders who are saviors of the Homeland. I believe in the heart and claw,” he said and revealed that it was something he worked on: “From coaching to theater classes, to watching videos of the television programs I went with someone who corrects me. At some point I did modulation, because I speak with my mouth very closed. Did exercises of expression with Lito Cruz, a genius, I laughed with him. Expression helps you. I practice what I have to say. The timbre of voice is important, the rhythm. Communication is a very important part of my responsibility.” YPF is a company to which the State does not put money every year. Airlines is different. Airlines every year, taca taca. All Argentines, you and me, but also the humble person in the suburbs, who buys a liter of milk and pays VAT. You have to balance the accounts because today the fiscal deficit is paid with inflation and inflation is the worst of the taxes that condemns those who have less. Once you balance the accounts, you have to see what taxes you lower. You have to lower taxes, yes, which one first? And for me the priority is the labor tax. I choose a tax to lower, the first is the tax on labor. So, you ask me if you would lower the VAT and if obviously I would love to lower the VAT, but you have to choose. Governing is making decisions and making unfriendly decisions, because what you have to choose is the tax that you do not lower or at least the one that you do not lower first, “he said regarding YPF, Aerolineas Argentinas and taxes. Sergio Massa is one of the presidential candidates and in the last time Malena Galmarini recalled their friendship. In this regard, Larreta responded: “It must have happened to you with some friends that during certain periods of your life you see them more, you have more closeness and then life separates you like that, naturally. At what point do you stop being friends with those you don’t see? It’s a category, I don’t know if you stop being friends with someone, but stop having everyday life. And the truth is that politics drove us away. It’s a reality.” I believe that there is a majority of Argentines, call it the silent majority, who do not want fights, do not want more fights between politicians, do not want more discussions, want someone to come and solve the problems. And someone who has experience, management skills, proven management. In general I have a high valuation of the work we did in the City of Buenos Aires and my preaching of doing, of action, of solving problems instead of the shout and the puteada of the tribune and everything. I think he has a value in people. That’s why, that’s why I trust,” he said firmly. If we go to the black box of your life, what is the moment that makes you the person you are today?: “First, of those meetings of little boy that I with pajamas at seven years old I sneaked, half on one side. Once Frondizi came home. Year 74. What was FREJULI at that time, where the MID ends up supporting Perón and I asked Frondizi very naively: but how can it be that you, who are not Perón’s vice president? And they all looked and laughed and it was marked. My old man told that anecdote all his life, but it is a bit the symbol of how my political vocation was awakened since I was little. That one. Second: when I went to study at Harvard, I consciously decided to study Business Administration, knowing that I wanted to specialize in Administration for the State. Because this conception that the state is an organization. And I made the difficult decision to start my public career again in Argentina. There in the United States they have this virtue of making you, they make you believe it, don’t they? They generate an academic environment that has a lot of truth and content, but also has a marketing genius, marketing in a good way. It’s not that it doesn’t have academic rigor. And at that time, year 93, Argentina was growing at 8% per year, so graduates of such universities had a lot of demand for work because there were many companies that wanted to invest in Argentina, right? And there were few of us. Then I had enough opportunities to work and I decided, it cost me an egg, it cost me, I don’t know if it cost me an egg, but I made the difficult decision to start my public career again in Argentina. And it was the most difficult decision, but the best, the best and looked back today, luckily, because otherwise you stay out and always, it’s always one more year, one more year and you don’t come back. And I’m very happy with the decision.”Towards the end of the interview the black box opens. An unexpected challenge begins. Week by week a figure will be submitted to the living room to dialogue and reflect. And you, do you dare to remember what moment a click made in your life?

Original source in Spanish