Surrounded by young people who jumped with him in an improvised pogo, to the rhythm of the jingle that says: «prepare the ballot for me, to vote for Sergio, we will turn it around,» the Unión por la Patria candidate Sergio Massa He closed his campaign at the Carlos Pellegrini Higher School of Commerce, in the City of Buenos Aires. «I’m going to leave everything between now and Sunday so that the hope you have of a good result can be fulfilled.»”, he promised them. The students, effusive, sang to him: “On Sunday no matter what the cost / on Sunday we have to win.”
After an intense week, and a few hours before the ballot that will define who will be the President of Argentina for the next four years, Massa told the young people sitting in the school yard: «It is time for them to defend utopias. The greatest utopia is the freedom to choose where to study without anyone giving them a check or voucher; to work wherever they want without anyone taking away their rights; that of having a development model for his country without anyone putting the flag of another country before it and that of defending equal opportunities.» Finally, crowded with students who wanted to take a selfie with him, he told them: «Our responsibility is to leave you a much better country.»
The event was simple and similar to the closing of the campaign that UP held before the general elections. On that occasion it was in a factory with workers, without party flags, nor the classic Peronist liturgy. This time it was also with a particular sector, face to face, without leaders. The only one who accompanied the candidate was the Minister of Education, Jaime Perczyk. The ban will begin today at eight in the morning and in the ruling party, at the end of the last official act, they showed confident for the campaign they carried out. «Now we just have to wait,» they repeated with enthusiasm and tiredness.
Around three in the afternoon, the patio of the historic Buenos Aires school began to fill with young people with Argentine t-shirts, Others had T-shirts from the Beatles or different bands, but none of them had any supporters. Girls and boys wearing Converse or Crocs sneakers, with their piercings and braces, were descending the marble stairs, avoiding others who were waiting anxiously sitting on the stairs, while they couldn’t stop chewing gum.
Once in the patio, located on the floor in different rounds, they drank mate and played cards. Others read and there was even one of them who in the middle of the music – from Los Redondos and Charly García to Duki and Niki Nicole – did calculations with a scientific calculator. The atmosphere that was felt in the hallways of the «Pelle» is what is felt at the end of the year in any school in the country: anxiety and heat, in the midst of preparing for the final exams. In this case, of course, crossed by the political situation to which these young people pay special attention.
Others, already standing because there was no room, They watched a video of Milei from a cell phone screen and criticized it. «Here it is marginal to be libertarian, because it is a very politicized school, but I think it is important that, beyond the debate, Massa can talk to the young people and tell us what can happen if Milei wins and how it is going to harm us, who come to public school,» says Fidel, 16 years old, in dialogue with this newspaper. On the walls there are hanging, in addition to Argentine flags, white handkerchiefs of the Mothers and Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo and on the floor a sticker with a photo of Taty Almeida and Massa that says: «Massabuelas.»
The conversations were interrupted by the doorbell. Everyone stopped to cheer – even neighbors from a neighboring building who came out of the window with UP signs – and Massa entered the patio. Two students introduced him and, to break the ice, said: «For us It is very important that politicians talk to young people and not just about young people. That’s why we are happy that you are here and it is an honor that you choose Pelle. We come very afraid and terrified of the right and how it is advancing,» they told him.
«We are going to defend and improve free, quality, inclusive public education»Massa promised the young people in the face of the threat from his opponent, Javier Milei, which intends to privatize it. Along these lines, he expressed: «There is no greater freedom than that you can choose where you study and not have to go around begging for a voucher or a check to go to one university or another.»
He spoke to them in a calm and complicit tone, and also asked them that, if elected, they «be his censors.» «When they see that I do something well, I want them to point it out to me, but when they see that I do something wrong, or that I don’t keep my promises, they should yell at me and assert themselves»he told them and gave them a task: «The most important challenge we have is that, in the face of so much anti-politics, Argentines believe again. «That is the biggest mountain we have to cross and it is not crossed just by winning an election.»
Massa clarified that he wanted to leave the young people four axles to work together if elected. First mentioned a «renewal of the educational system.» «We have an educational system that must be improved because the technological revolution It is taking us ahead. He explained that it will be about «changing that educational system by looking at the robotics and artificial intelligence«.
In second mentioned that, in the face of the change that the world of work is experiencing, «knowledge must be democratized as much as possible». «Every student in a school must have their notebook, right to connectivity, speed and bandwidth,» he added and expressed that this has to be for the entire country.
He third challenge, he added, «has to do with exit to the world of work«.» «I worked with 50 presidents of 50 universities to make shorter careers and with more job opportunities»he detailed and went on to fourth and last axis linked to marking the other side of Milei’s ideas: «The climate agenda». «Argentina cannot have a President who denies climate change,» he pronounced and the young people stood up to applaud and sing «Massa Presidente.» «The right to live in a healthy environment is fundamental,» she indicated and opined that «No one wanted to talk about the IMF or the environmental issue during the campaign.»
The candidate recalled that «the young vote is super important,» and asked: «From now until Sunday you have a very important task because there are kids your age who fell in love with a country in which organs are bought and sold, They buy weapons freely, or in which they charge for university and health. From now until Sunday we have the task of explaining the damage, of convincing without disrespect, of explaining the importance of living in society and not of every man for himself.«.
On another trip he spoke about federalism. He praised the Buenos Aires school for its career and for being a «former of great teams», but clarified that «Just as the universities began to expand, the project should be to extend the colleges associated with the universities throughout the country.» Finally, he stressed that being with them «filled him with hope and optimism.»
«The construction is with love, with hope. You are not going to be able to extinguish the dreams that you have to live in a more just society with rights for all. I tell them looking into their eyes as if they were my children,» he promised them. And he finished: «If I have the responsibility of governing, I will leave my skin and my soul so that we can build that country that we dream of.»«.