Lanús: the transition begins after the defeat of Juntos por el Cambio

The resounding and unexpected defeat of Diego Kravetz, the candidate for mayor of Lanús of Juntos por el Cambio, who was defeated in the elections of Sunday, October 22 by Julián Álvarez, caused an implosion in the municipal structure that Néstor Grindetti consolidated since 2015 in that municipality in the south of the Buenos Aires suburbs. The victory of Unión por la Patria, with more than 10 points of advantage, was celebrated as their own by the majority of the municipal plant, which never ended up trusting the officials who arrived from the hand of the president of Independiente and former gubernatorial candidate of Juntos por el Cambio. who was also played against by his past as president of the Kirchnerist bloc of legislators of the City of Buenos Aires. For the opposition councilors, and also the related municipal unions, it was always someone outside the territory, and they pointed to him for having left Peronism to Macrism in the times of drought of power. With his particular style and imprint, Kravetz was able to warn that a large part of society was tired of the acts of insecurity and demanded a strong hand against crime. For Kravetz, who in many acts of insecurity in Lanús assumed the role of the police as a personnel, and even intervened on one occasion in the arrest of a criminal, this policy did not end up paying off. It is also true that he was not the only one responsible for the defeat, since a good part of the blame lies (and assumes privately) with Grindetti himself, who was forced to ask for leave from the municipality on several occasions due to the resignation of journalist Fabián Doman as president of the Independiente de Avellaneda club. Although Grindetti was born and raised in Lanús, a good part of the local electorate never considered him as one of their own, since he continued with his private home in Caballito, with weekends in Pilar, and even during the toughest stage of the Covid quarantine he remained several weeks without going to the communal headquarters. In any case, the realization of some public works typical of the PRO seal, such as improving lighting, cleaning streams, or the development of the commercial and gastronomic area known as Lanusita (in response to neighboring Las Lomitas), allowed him to retain the municipality in 2019, although by a small margin. Álvarez’s victory in these elections emboldened municipal employees, who held batucadas, celebrations and toasts in all the offices, with varied chants towards their political bosses. Precisely, many of these chants, in the best football field style, were referred to the secretaries, undersecretaries and directors who arrived hand in hand with the PRO and who had a political past in the city of Buenos Aires. Even in sensitive sectors, the employees organized themselves to avoid any attempt to destroy or remove documentation, especially in the accounting and legal areas. Faced with this situation, some leaders who will accompany Álvarez from December 10 assess that the transition will not be easy, especially if the local PRO decides to accompany Javier Milei in the second round. The new administration will demand a detailed accounting of the municipal accounts, since although they discount that Grindetti always handled himself with great rigor and clarity in the numbers, his nomination as president of Independiente and then as a candidate for governor, took away time for him to continue managing the local coffers with an iron fist. For his part, Grindetti sounds like one of the possible candidates to occupy the Buenos Aires Chief of Staff or the presidency of Banco Ciudad, places in which he could be accompanied by Kravetz himself, which already rules out a new incursion of this political duo from the other side of the Riachuelo.

Original source in Spanish