Lucía Cámpora, the grand-niece of former president Héctor Cámpora, is the new secretary general of the La Cámpora group. The statement is redundant and cacophonous, but there is a story behind it that deserves to be told.
The 32-year-old activist and Buenos Aires City lawmaker legislator has been involved in the Kirchnerite group since at least 2014, and little by little she has been gaining profile. Her highest position in the university sphere was in 2018, when she was elected vice-president of the University of Buenos Aires Federation (Federación Universitaria de Buenos Aires, FUBA) aged 27. The following year she was elected to the City legislature for the Frente de Todos coalition, becoming a reference point for Kirchnerism in the capital.
From now on she faces a new challenge, leading an overhaul of La Cámpora’s leadership. "We are an organisation that leaves its generational character to assume an intergenerational character and for this new stage, compañera Lucía Cámpora will be in charge of the General Secretariat," read the La Cámpora communiqué that confirmed Andrés ‘El Cuervo’ Larroque was no longer the holder of the organisation’s most important position.
The change is evidenced by signs of the passage of time: La Cámpora’s founding members are no longer young – the grey hair is starting to show – and have therefore begun to lose the codes of youth. Lucía, on the other hand, is a regular on activist streaming networks and in recent weeks has taken part in a string of meetings with university and secondary school students.
At the start of March, in Exaltación de la Cruz, the first National University Camp of La Cámpora took place under the slogan "Nothing without Cristina." A the campsite of FATICA, the tanners' union, 800 students turned out. A few days later, more than 100 high=school activists from all over the country met in Chascomús for the so-called "Mesa Federal del Frente de Secundarios de La Cámpora" (“Federal Committee of the High School Front of La Cámpora”). Both meetings were also attended by Máximo Kirchner.
Lucía's family ties with Héctor ‘El Tío’ Cámpora come from her grandfather, Pedro Lindolfo Cámpora, who was the former president's brother. Pedro Lindolfo had three children (two boys and a girl), one of whom was Pedro Daniel, Lucía's father, who is also the "guilty party" when it comes to Héctor Cámpora's nickname of "uncle."
In the 1970s, Pedro Daniel was a militant in the Peronist youth and his comrades knew of his family ties with the then-delegate of Perón. Whenever they referred to Cámpora, they called him "Pedro's uncle." A classic example of something that started as a joke and stuck.
Lucía Cámpora’s role in the coming months will be key, especially in a context in which both Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and the rest of the leaders of the Kirchnerite organisation are concerned by the disenchantment of young people with politics and the migration of young voters towards libertarian sectors such as those represented by Javier Milei.
In a recent survey by the consulting firm Synopsis, it was recorded that 51 percent of Milei's voters nationwide are between 16 and 29 years old. Fernández de Kirchner, aware of this, has been repeating in her messages for those in their 20s in her speeches, aiming at those who were just babies when Néstor Kirchner came to power.
"Perhaps those in their 20s today don't remember, but back in 2001, Argentines in the streets were shouting, 'Let them all go, let not a single one of them remain.' It was a repudiation of politics for what had happened," said the vice-president in her speech at the CCK cultural centre last March 21.
It is in this contex that the grand-niece of Héctor Cámpora has taken over the coordination of the Kirchnerite youth group that bears his surname. Lucía now has the unviable task – and responsibility – of taking La Cámpora to the next level as a political grouping. bringing together the comrades and the children as she goes.
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