Argentina’s Teflon governor feels the heat

Sat Jul 21, 2012 1:06am IST
* Province’s cash crunch, strikes test Daniel Scioli
* Former speedboat racer admits presidential ambitions
* Long-standing alliance with president under strain
By Helen Popper
BUENOS AIRES, July 20 (Reuters) – Daniel Scioli is Argentina’s Teflon governor.
He has raised taxes, paid wages late and been scolded repeatedly by the president in public. But little sticks to the former speedboat racer who dreams of becoming president himself.
Scioli’s stubborn popularity and Zen-like composure are facing their toughest test yet, however, as a financial crisis in his province of Buenos Aires exposes pent-up tension and rivalry in his alliance with President Cristina Fernandez.
Teachers and other civil servants went on strike this month when the province failed to pay a mid-year bonus on time. Fernandez eventually responded to Scioli’s appeals for federal funds, but she has directed stinging criticism at him over the cash crunch.
«Up until now the Teflon’s worked great, but if this starts to affect him, the magic’s over,» said Julio Barbaro, a Peronist party thinker and former government official.
«Disenchanted Peronists are looking for a (presidential) candidate and today it’s Scioli, but they could still end up looking for someone else. Scioli could suffer,» he added.
Like many pacts within the multifaceted Peronist movement, Fernandez’s alliance with Scioli was a marriage of convenience that served to win votes and keep a firm hold on power.
Scioli, 55, who tends toward the center-right and is liked by Wall Street and the local establishment, always seemed a strange bedfellow for the fiery left-leaning Fernandez and her late husband and predecessor as president, Nestor Kirchner.
Even though he served as Kirchner’s vice president, Scioli is disliked by die-hard Fernandez supporters. They view his media-savvy style with disdain and see him as too far to the right to be a worthy political heir.
The governor’s relationship with Fernandez has soured since Kirchner died of a heart attack in 2010.
When he acknowledged in May that he would like to run in a 2015 presidential election – already a badly kept secret – it touched a nerve in the president’s inner circle.
«They’ve punished him for an act of sincerity,» said Ivan Budassi, a close Scioli ally who serves as a lawmaker in Buenos Aires province.
Fernandez will be able to seek a third straight term only if she changes the constitution, something Scioli said he would back even if it meant sacrificing his own ambitions.
Scioli rose to fame as a champion speedboat racer, but he has built his political career on boundless patience and a willingness to take the backseat.
The mild-mannered governor still expresses loyalty to Fernandez and he has never publicly lost his temper or criticized the Kirchners even in the face of sharp reprimands.
In recent weeks, Fernandez has alluded to financial mismanagement in the province, an economic powerhouse the size of Italy that is home to more than a third of the population.
Scioli’s deputy governor Gabriel Mariotto – a die-hard government ally hand-picked for the job by Fernandez – took aim at him this month by criticizing politicians «who care about celebrities and having photos taken with famous sportsmen.»
Scioli and his wife, Karina Rabolini, a former model who has her own line of cosmetics and clothing, frequently appear in the society pages. He played a charity soccer game with Manchester City striker Carlos Tevez last month.
Mariotto also drew a veiled parallel with disgraced former President Fernando de la Rua, who infamously fled the presidential palace in a helicopter at the height of a devastating economic and political crisis in 2001-2002.
De la Rua «had the highest approval rating since 1973 until his government fell,» Mariotto was quoted as saying.Like the Peronist party itself, Scioli is a political chameleon adept at metamorphosing to suit the mood and the leadership of the moment.
He maintains a hectic schedule of public appearances and is often personally involved in high-profile rescue or disaster operations. When the body of a missing girl was found after a search that gripped the nation last year, Scioli accompanied her mother during the identification.
He got his break in politics thanks to former President Carlos Menem, who hoped the popular sportsman’s celebrity status would boost his rightist government’s waning support in the late 1990s when economic storm clouds started to gather.
Born to a middle-class Buenos Aires family that ran a chain of electrical appliance stores, Scioli studied marketing but his main interest was sport and he started speedboat racing in 1986.
Three years later, his boat crashed during a race on the Parana river and he lost his right arm. He started using an artificial limb and went on to win eight world championships.
Under former President Eduardo Duhalde, Scioli was named sport and tourism secretary. He helped boost Kirchner’s profile as his running-mate in 2003 and the presidential couple tapped his popularity in the key vote-winning province of Buenos Aires by picking him twice as their candidate for governor.

Even as the state of provincial finances raises questions about Scioli’s skills as an administrator, his approval ratings are resilient and he shows no sign of losing his trademark cool.
«I want to transmit calm, tranquility,» he said last week In a television interview. «I’m always going to behave like someone who is respectful, someone who tries to employ all the reason, good sense and also self-criticism necessary.»
«That’s the hallmark of my work and the rest of my life is a testament to that, too,» he said.
Despite the pressure from the presidential palace, Scioli has found little sympathy from non-Peronist opponents of Fernandez, who question his unblinking public loyalty to the power couple that has ruled for a nearly a decade.
«Scioli’s having an attack of Stockholm syndrome,» said Radical party lawmaker Julio Martinez, referring to hostages becoming sympathetic to their kidnappers.
But his placid approach has struck a chord with many voters. An opinion poll this month by the Management & Fit consulting firm showed Scioli had a positive image of 48.7 percent, compared to 40 percent for Fernandez. Her rejection rating was also higher.
While the combative Fernandez fights ideologically charged battles on multiple fronts — against union boss Hugo Moyano, media conglomerate Clarin and critics of her unorthodox economic policies — Scioli may be seeking to present himself as the harmonious alternative.
«Maybe at some point we needed a ‘more authoritarian’ leadership but now I think the country and the people need a style that’s more about consensus,» Budassi said.
With three years to go until the presidential election, however, Scioli’s non-stick image is likely to face persistent pressure from a government that has decided he is not the right heir.
«They want to remove him from the list of candidates,» Peronist lawmaker and former Buenos Aires Governor Felipe Sola said. «They feel Scioli doesn’t represent Kirchnerism and that it would be a failure if Scioli was the successor.»