By Michael Soltys, Buenos Aires Herald Senior Editor

Ever since the midterm elections a month ago today President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has, of course, continued to head government while Buenos Aires Governor Daniel Scioli now formally leads the Peronist movement as the new Justicialist Party chairman - for almost the first time we need to consider seriously whether the formal leadership is not also the real. All the evidence in last week's political developments pointed that way - CFK mediated the internal rift in the CGT, Scioli displayed political independence by embracing some farming demands (notably lower wheat export duties and freer beef trade) while Néstor Kirchner was nowhere to be seen.

Yet there are reasons to doubt whether this emancipation of the formal leadership is either intended or possible. Skeptics suspect Scioli of not so much becoming his own man as paving the way to being a proxy 2011 presidential candidate for the Kirchners (replacing Santa Fe Senator Carlos Reutemann in that role just as Kirchner replaced Reutemann as outgoing President Eduardo Duhalde's chosen heir back in 2003) - at the same time boosting CFK's presidential authority protects her from becoming a premature lame duck, quite apart from a fresh start. But even if there were no ulterior motives behind this new emergence of the formal government and party leadership, how much scope will they have to run things? Certainly far less than Néstor Kirchner who would be the first to attribute his leadership over the last six years to abundant coffers rather than personal charm (which his wife would overrate at her peril in her own case). And these coffers have not only shrunk alarmingly in a year of crisis but stand to fall further precisely because of Scioli's chosen route to political recovery - the farming leadership seeks the removal of almost a half of total grain export duties and the government will need to meet at least some, if not most of these demands to regain credibility.

This dearth of funds both weakens and strengthens the government. Kirchner's shattering electoral defeat has definitely created a power vacuum into which Scioli (or rather the Greater Buenos Aires mayors pushing him) can move but both an insolvent governor and the mayors depend more than ever on federal funds. A similar dependence overhangs the other governors in the process of meeting with CFK although the lack of funds makes her more of a problem than a solution for them. The next month should tell us far more about the new face of leadership.