Alarming forecast of a Peronist mayor of the suburbs: “By the end of August we will be as in 2001”

“It must be said that the maximum peak has not yet been reached: the worst has not arrived,” said Mario Alberto Ishii, mayor of José C. Paz’s party. The phrase served as a preamble to the comparison between the brutal economic, political and social debacle of the beginning of the century and the current situation, with the coronavirus and quarantine as a transversal factor to the needs of the people. Ishii predicted a chaotic outlook: “By the end of August we will be like in 2001 approximately. I lived through two lootings and I think that people are going to go back to 2001. Medium-sized companies and SMEs can’t do it at all, no matter how much they help them. They have the same expense and are melting“

The crisis scenario refers him to 2001. Ishii is concerned: he governs one of the poorest districts in the suburbs and the more than one hundred days of social, preventive and compulsory isolation are beginning to take their toll on the socio-economic atmosphere of the more than 354,000 inhabitants – according to estimate of October 2007- distributed in 74 neighborhoods. “When it exploded in 2001 it was because of hunger. They went out to loot all the businesses for food. Today the anger is from people who are out of work. And the worst thing is that many are in much greater need than in 2001“, I consider.

In contrasting both borderline situations, he found a difference that alarms him. He spoke about respect for the authorities: “I see that a line is being crossed: people no longer respect officials. He sees everything wrong, as if it were their fault: the President, the mayor or a councilor. They award them the situation they have ”. “But the pandemic came and we are like this”, he argued and immediately tried a reasoning that hides a criticism of the management of the national government, the current and the previous: “I don’t know if we would be much better without the coronavirus ”.

Ishii is one of the bastions of Peronism in the Buenos Aires suburbs: he is serving his fourth term as mayor in José C. Paz. He was president of the deliberative council of the party when the two legislative chambers promulgated on October 20, 1994 the provincial law No. 11,551 that ordered to divide the General Sarmiento Party to found the José C. Paz Party. The militant of the Justicialista party was elected mayor in three consecutive times (1999-2003 / 2003-2007 / 2007-2011), senator for the province from 2013 to 2017, with the use of a license, and again municipal chief from 2014 to date. Ishii and José C. Paz are two binding elements: one should not speak of one without naming the other.

“I have a single factory, but there are 6,500 businesses. If the businesses are merged, we are left directly without sources of work. We don’t have a beach, we don’t have a mountain, we really have a problem. And people are working class. Not working in the district implies going to other places to do it. It was complicated for us. Many made changas or worked in a factory, which is closed today. The problem is being accentuated ”, declared in dialogue with Jorge Fontevecchia, director of Profile.

“People from different parts of the country can’t take it anymore, not only in the Conurbano. They are melting. Businesses go bankrupt. The cessation of payments is generalized ”, he developed. In turn, he evaluated that in the last year crime increased by between 70 and 80 percent and that the crisis also becomes residential: “In this last month much more crime is seen. The motorcycle jets reappeared, we did not have them here. In José C. Paz the banks were never robbed. And today you find that there are operations of twenty or thirty motorcycles with armed people. We are working very hard to make operations, because it is going haywire and people are becoming intolerant. I have filmed, for example, that there are areas where land or houses are taken that María Eugenia Vidal left unfinished. Most of the people who are trying to take land are foreigners. “

Ishii named the word overflow several times in the interview. He fears a collapse and exposes it: “Unfortunately, in certain places the police are already outnumbered. The entire second cordon of the Conurbano is like this. Moreno is worse than José C. Paz; Malvinas Argentinas is the same as José C. Paz. Police are overwhelmed and federal forces must come. People are advancing and they are not going to be able to stop them. People advance and if you leave them, it will continue like this ”.

He interprets that this exponential growth in crime has a turning point and a direct relationship with the release of prisoners in jails with the excuse of avoiding coronavirus infections: “Before, we were very calm. We had the best statistics in the region. We were very well. Now that achievement is fading. And in other districts it is the same. It’s getting ugly. ” “The number of prisoners who have been released shows that they are on the street he added. Not having a job, not having an occupation, they reoffend. So the federal forces have to come out to collaborate. The federal forces are in, but they have to leave with more emphasis. They have to be present, if we are not in danger of an overflow. ”

Mario Ishii foresees a peak of infection for mid-July and a peak of social unrest for when the availability of intensive care beds begins to run low. In his analysis, he reimagined the situation in the face of an overflow: “As mayor I have the concern that this will overflow at some point. When? When the dead begin to appear. When people see their dead, when there are people who are not treated in hospitals because they are overwhelmed. We may have a problem there. “