By Michael Soltys, Buenos Aires Herald Senior Editor

The Kirchner political machine has made such a formidable recovery from its June 28 defeat that it is becoming increasingly frequent to hear voices resigned to Néstor Kirchner as the country’s leader from 2011 as a once and future president but this mighty engine also has its elements of inbuilt self-destruction. At least three of the guiding principles of Kirchner political strategy — control of the street, always ensuring that the main adversary is on the right, not left and, above all, the absolutely fundamental “war-chest” without which political power is deemed to be impossible — carry the seeds of destruction which might well counter all the accumulation of extraordinary powers to bypass Congress and the extortionate funding of the provinces to ensure control.

Control of the street is precisely what the government lacks at the moment — far from such pro-Kirchner picket leaders as Luis D’Elía channelling the whole movement to supply shock troops to discourage opposition demonstrations, hostile pickets made downtown traffic impossible all last week. This faltering control over the picket movement dovetails with the increasing failure of the Kirchners to embody leftist and progressive causes in Argentina — a failure which comes precisely when the Cristina Fernández de Kirchner administration has become more dependent than ever on leftist support in Congress (a factor which has in turn contributed towards defining the legislative agenda). The government’s political reform bill can also be seen as a defence mechanism against the challenge from the left with its high thresholds aimed against leftist Fernando “Pino” Solanas just as much as dissident Peronist Francisco de Narváez but this bill only alienates the left even further. Equally, confirmation of the alliance with CGT boss Hugo Moyano also seeks to keep the growing clout of leftwing shop stewards within organized labour at bay but only deepens their hostility.

Yet the government’s main problems are a fatal obsession with the “war-chest” religion and, above all, the bottom line of unpopularity (as low as 18 percent). While normal businesses must re-invest to survive alongside earning and spending, the “war-chest” is a one-way flow of revenue with strategic distribution as its only destiny — revenue cannot keep up with spending to sustain the multiplying layers of support and an extortionate model ultimately extorts itself. But ignoring the needs of the people to assemble a political machine only deprives that machine of the most important fuel of all — the votes of the majority.