Ariel Sribman Mittelman *

“10. In December, I will convene a government of national unity. (…) The challenge we have is the construction of state policies. And democratic coexistence and the development of a new agenda must be the obligation of the entire leadership of Argentina.” Sergio Massa, October 1, 2023.

Most political systems provide different formulas for dealing with exceptional circumstances: state of alarm, state of emergency, war, exception. All these tools converge at a vanishing point: the concentration of executive power. That is, it is about strengthening the ability of the executive to make decisions quickly and put them into practice, avoiding the dissipation of political energy that usually comes with party clashes, gridlock and endless parliamentary debates.

Does it sound scandalous? Perhaps: it is tantamount to saying that the very foundations of democracy involve the dissipation of political energy. In the face of this, three clarifications must be made. The first is that democracy is not a perfect system. This, indeed, has its drawbacks. That, on the other hand, doesn’t mean it offers more advantages than any other system we know of.

Another clarification, in the light of the previous one: in reality we don’t even live in pure democracies, but in mixed systems. But this requires explanations that exceed the available space, which are found in stories from Polybius.

The third explanation is that the need to concentrate power in critical moments is not a discovery of the 21st century: the Roman Republic had the figure of a dictator, who condensed power for a limited time and with limited powers (just like here, an exception) to face stormy times. Neither then nor now is it a question of placing all power in the hands of a despot: the Roman dictator and the current head of the government in a state of emergency are below the law.

government of national unity

The government of national unity belongs to a different category from the previous mechanisms, but is strongly related to them, since it shares its goal: to avoid the dispersion of executive energy in political conflicts; to strengthen the executive by providing it with the support of several – perhaps all – political forces to face critical circumstances. We have a crystal clear and recent example: Israel, whose politics had been extremely polarized for more than a year by the judicial reform project, quickly formed a government of national unity to face the crisis arising from the mass terrorist attack committed by Hamas on October 7.

The government of national unity is also the answer that Sergio Massa offers to the critical situation that Argentina is going through. So a first observation: given that Argentina is going through an exceptional circumstance rather than a permanent, structural crisis, the diagnosis seems to be quite wrong. This, which may seem superficial, has significant consequences, which will be seen in the third observation. However, why not convene a government of national unity to face this crisis?

The question leads us to another observation: a government of national unity is not a government that co-opts individual personalities from other parties. It is a government that includes all these parties, in order to avoid the government-opposition dynamic in normal times, which would prevent the executive from acting with all the force that the circumstances require. In other words: several leaders of the opposition party who enter the government individually will not prevent the parties they belong to (or have belonged to) from making the work of the government difficult.

Third observation: a government of national unity is not a coalition government. The difference is in the commitment of the participants, in how close the lines are. In an exceptional situation, the political forces gathered in the government of national unity understand that it is the state itself and that there is no place for politics, betrayal, compromises and conditions. They all go together. We leave the power games for another time. On the other hand, the coalition government can fall apart, it can be subject to tensions between the members, it can… do you, reader, remember Cristina and Cobos? That is why it is important to distinguish ordinary times from exceptional times.

Fourth observation: the existence of members of other parties within the executive power, even if it is with the organic support of those formations, does not guarantee national unity. Let’s go back to the example of Cristina and Cobos. Therein lies the fundamental problem with Mass’s proposal: its success depends on the political forces on the other side of the divide. All you have to do is listen to Milei’s statements after the first round: “I am ready to make a clean slate, shuffle and give again, with the aim of ending Kirchnerism.” The saying goes that two don’t fight if one won’t. But they don’t make peace if one doesn’t want to.

Fifth observation, and undoubtedly the most important: Massa is right. Argentina urgently needs state policies. They have been needed for forty years. But state policies mean exactly the opposite of what he suggests: they are policies agreed with the opposition, not with the government itself, regardless of whether there are people from other parties in it.

Either way, it’s an interesting long read. One way is to contrast Massa’s proposal with Milea’s words. And what that reading reveals are the open wounds caused by 20 years of populism. That is the price every president will have to pay. But it is clearer that no one will clash with Massa if he tries to form something like a government of national unity. What Kirchnerism has shared for two decades, unfortunately, is a blunt but syrupy statement like that of the Peronist candidate after the first round that cannot be fixed in a few seconds: “Crack is dead.” At the same moment, Milei shouted that he would end Kirchnerism.

A final remark: the government of national unity is not about the distribution of ministries. One does not rule with everyone: one rules for everyone. (OR)

* Ariel Sribman Mittelman is a political scientist and doctor of political sciences from the University of Salamanca. Specializing in the succession of power and vice presidents in Latin America.