By Marcos Pérez Talia
Now that the Concertation, as a legal figure, has become unobjectionable to the opposition, new disagreements arise regarding the type of election of the presidential candidacy. When it seemed that the internal election by open register would be the smoothest option, Kattya González and Euclides Acevedo raised their critical voices against it. In this article we wish to review those arguments and discuss them with statistical data.
Last June 12, the agreement of the Concertation for the general elections of 2023 was signed. The absence of Kattya Gonzalez, presidential pre-candidate, was striking, even though her party was a signatory of the agreement. According to what she stated, her absence was due to discrepancies resulting from the modality of the election. She pointed out that “the agreement, as it is conceived today, is a trap for those candidates who are not part of the infrastructure” and that this system “reinforces that power is reserved for the structures and cliques”.
From another angle, the also presidential pre-candidate Euclides Acevedo was firing sharp darts against the Concertation election mechanism. In a radio interview, he indicated that the Concertation thus designed is an undemocratic Concertation and that the parties and movements that support it do not want to participate. In another statment, he predicted that the Concertation is going to end up being only an internal liberal party.
These arguments deserve to be gauged in the light of some statistical data. It is true that the inclusion of colorado members may generate doubts, especially after the challenge of ANR lawyers to the Concertation “Juntos Ganamos” of 2015 in Asunción. At that time, the Superior Court of Electoral Justice, through resolution AI. 69/2015 of June 18, 2015, resolved the exclusion of the colorado affiliates from the Concertation register at that time. But the focus of the debate was always about the inclusion of colorado affiliates, not independents or third parties.
The PLRA, far from being a problem for the Concertation’s primaries, is, in fact, the only opposition party that resolves its candidacies through broad and competitive internal elections. The other parties, after a (surely arduous) internal discussion, agree on the conformation of their lists without national competition. It is not that it is right or wrong, but they are simply different modalities. But the lack of internal democratic exercise in the other opposition parties should not be an argument used in their favor to avoid an internal electoral competition.
In the worst scenario for the Concertation (if the justice system decides to exclude the Colorados), there is still an important non-liberal margin that can make the internal elections competitive again. Let us look at the data of the last general elections of 2018.
Table 1. Electoral data of ANR and PLRA in 2018
Source: NRA website and Pérez Talia (2021).
In the 2018 general elections there were 4,260,816 eligible members to vote. If we remove the colorado affiliates (2,309,061) which represented 54% of the national roll, 46% is available. Of that 46%, the PLRA represented 31%, leaving a margin of 15% that is neither colorado nor liberal. In the opposition, that 15% is significant as an available electoral pool. But so far, we are only talking about absolute numbers of affiliates. The reality, on the other hand, shows that not all these affiliates participate in the internal life of the traditional parties. In addition, there is another issue that makes the analysis more complex, that of the multiple affiliations that exist without weeding out.
Then, to have a more accurate approximation, it would be necessary to observe the numbers of votes in the internal elections. Once again discounting the ANR affiliates, 503,695 people voted in the PLRA internal elections, whom we could call the “hard liberal vote” or the “baseline vote”. Thus, if the opposition universe was 1,951,755, and the liberal hard vote was 503,695, 1,448,060 votes remained outside the hard structures of the PLRA. That is to say, the liberal structure could only boast of “having” 25% of the non-colorado vote. The remaining 75% were an enormous opportunity for conquest.
As we do not yet have the data for the 2023 elections, these 2018 numbers allow us to make a comparative exercise to project scenarios. If the 2023 numbers are not going to be exaggeratedly different from the previous ones, then the internal dispute in the Concertation does not seem to be a “mere liberal primary”, where the party structures are going to manage the results as they please. There is a lot of margin in the opposition outside the “hard liberal vote” waiting to be seduced, captivated and mobilized on December 18.
The numbers show that the Concertation primary elections can become truly competitive, as long as there is an adequate political work that implies, among other things, territorial organization, financing, appropriate speeches, etc. In other words, conquering that 75% of the non-liberal opposition implies, as any other activity, a lot of effort, dedication, and talent. Therefore, so much opposition to the mechanism of the internal elections raises doubts as to whether these sectors are willing to take on the challenge. But to say that the Concertation is a purely liberal game does not seem to have much support.
The PLRA, far from being a problem for the Concertation’s primaries, is, in fact, the only opposition party that resolves its candidacies through broad and competitive internal elections. The other parties, after a (surely arduous) internal discussion, agree on the conformation of their lists without national competition. It is not that it is right or wrong, but they are simply different modalities. But the lack of internal democratic exercise in the other opposition parties should not be an argument used in their favor to avoid an internal electoral competition.
The only way to solve the presidential formula is no other than an internal election with an open electoral roll, with or without the ANR. Whether the colorados are or not, the chances are open for any candidacy willing to assume the electoral work.
As an example, when sealing the parliamentary alliance between Kattya González, Soledad Núñez and Hagamos, they always emphasized the idea of a citizens’ list, made up of “decent and committed citizens”. There is a self-interested reinforcement of the word “citizens”, surely seeking to contrast it with the idea of “party structures”. In parenthesis, as if the liberal electorate were a different being from a citizen. In any case, this assertion of being spokespersons of a citizen project and alternative to the liberal structure should be an extra incentive to compete on December 18 and demonstrate their electoral wealth at the ballot box.
In short, if the elections do not favor them, it is not, in any case, a problem of the votinh method. Or worse, a problem with democracy. On the contrary, it is related to their own electoral capital. Polls or mere top-level agreements could never replace the democratic vote as the best way to know who should represent the interests and aspirations of the opposing Concertation.
Cover image: La Nación PY