Argentina facing the configuration of a new electoral map

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By Lorena Soler*

On Sun­day, Au­gust 13, 2023, the si­mul­ta­ne­ous and com­pul­sory open pri­mary elec­tions (PASO) were held in Ar­gentina. This elec­toral en­gi­neer­ing was cre­ated by the then Pres­i­dent Cristina Fer­nán­dez in 2009 for the se­lec­tion of can­di­dates of the po­lit­i­cal par­ties, i.e., pri­mary elec­tions to de­cide who will dis­pute the po­si­tions at the na­tional level. Such elec­toral strat­egy was im­posed to pro­vide some ra­tio­nal­ity to the Per­o­nism dis­pute, de­moc­ra­tiz­ing the de­ci­sion mech­a­nisms, and to re­duce the num­ber of play­ers by means of the elec­toral thresh­old of 1.5% of the valid votes. An at­tempt was made to ex­port the Uruguayan model, for an Ar­gentina where po­lit­i­cal dis­putes take place in the streets rather than at the bal­lot box.

The PASO re­sults showed the con­fig­u­ra­tion of a new elec­toral map, which on Oc­to­ber 22 will re­flect a new power map. For now, the re­sult showed, even with a three-way tie, an undis­puted win­ner, Javier Milei, and three big losers: Jun­tos por el Cam­bio, Ho­ra­cio Ro­dríguez Lar­reta and Per­o­nism.

Javier Milei’s Lib­er­tad Avanza party won with 7,116,352 votes (30%), against Jun­tos por el Cam­bio with 6,698,029 votes – di­vided be­tween Pa­tri­cia Bull­rich (16.98%) and Ho­ra­cio Ro­dríguez Lar­reta (11.30%)- and Unión por la Pa­tria with 6,460,689 votes (27.27%), -di­vided be­tween Ser­gio Massa (21.4%) and Juan Grabois (5.9%). Milei was the most voted can­di­date, to every­one’s sur­prise: an­a­lysts, in­tel­lec­tu­als, con­sul­tants, and politi­cians near and far. Also taken aback were the neigh­bor­hood mil­i­tant, the tire­less twit­terer and the neigh­bor around the cor­ner. Javier Milei’s path is not new. For sev­eral years he has been part of the staff of daily guests of news chan­nels and since 2021 he has been a na­tional con­gress­man for the Au­tonomous City of Buenos Aires. Nor is his po­lit­i­cal-cul­tural phe­nom­e­non, which is rig­or­ously stud­ied in aca­d­e­mic and jour­nal­is­tic cir­cles, sur­pris­ing. Sev­eral tran­scen­dent works have ex­am­ined his lib­er­tar­ian ide­ol­ogy, have made ethno­gra­phies of his po­lit­i­cal acts, and have held sym­po­siums on his books. But Sun­day’s nov­elty is dif­fer­ent. Javier Milei is no longer just a rad­i­cal right-wing po­lit­i­cal ex­per­i­ment; he is a na­tional elec­toral force. In that pas­sage, he de­mol­ished the first myth: he showed us that he is no longer a Buenos Aires phe­nom­e­non, nor an ex­clu­sively ur­ban one. Javier Milei came third in both Buenos Aires (cap­i­tal and province) but also won in 16 provinces of the coun­try with a trans­ver­sal vote, in terms of so­cial classes, gen­er­a­tions, old po­lit­i­cal iden­ti­ties and tar­nished ide­olo­gies. He was for a while the can­di­date that the es­tab­lish­ment, to put it in a quick way, put in the cen­ter of the scene. In that way, he man­aged to make the whole elec­toral sce­nario be con­fig­ured in the ge­og­ra­phy of the right and to show a Jun­tos x el Cam­bio as the de­mo­c­rat ver­sion. Now, the same es­tab­lish­ment des­per­ately seeks to de­ac­ti­vate it. Busi­ness­men, cor­po­ra­tions, and frag­ile agree­ments with the IMF are be­gin­ning to creak in the face of a po­lit­i­cal char­ac­ter that may put their own sub­sis­tence at risk.  For a chal­lenge, Trump and Bol­sonaro have al­ready been enough.

We are facing a triple tie and the end only brings uncertainty. “Anything can happen” is the phrase that runs through the analysis of the current situation. But we are not facing a 2001 (dissolution of the state and monetary authority) nor a before 2015, where Daniel Scioli could show Mauricio Macri welfare indicators of a government that was leaving through the big door

Nei­ther his own nor those of oth­ers con­sid­ered the pos­si­bil­ity that Javier Milei would be elected in first place to com­fort­ably en­ter the pres­i­den­tial race, whose first round will be de­cided on Oc­to­ber 22. There were sev­eral el­e­ments to as­sume that he would be in third place in the re­sult of Sun­day, Au­gust 13: his lack of party struc­ture and the poor re­sults ob­tained in the provin­cial elec­tions, in which Milei was not a can­di­date, which were held “sep­a­rately” from the PASO in the pre­vi­ous months. The gov­er­nors, trained in the art of sub­sist­ing, held their own provin­cial elec­tions dis­en­gaged from the PASO, which would prob­a­bly have or­dered the board in a dif­fer­ent way. As a coun­ter­fac­tual ex­am­ple, it is worth high­light­ing that on Sun­day, Lib­er­tad Avanza lost in three of the five ju­ris­dic­tions where gov­er­nors and other provin­cial au­thor­i­ties were elected: Milei was not the most voted can­di­date in the City of Buenos Aires, Province of Buenos Aires and Cata­marca.

Milei is also the son of a phe­nom­e­non that is grow­ing in to­day’s democ­ra­cies: in­de­pen­dent vot­ers who not only de­cide their vote min­utes be­fore the dark­room, but also put to­gether their own elec­toral col­lage: they can choose crossed op­tions for each of the lev­els of rep­re­sen­ta­tion (may­ors, gov­er­nors, pres­i­dents) with scis­sors and play­dough. This prac­tice, which surely in the province of Buenos Aires and the sub­urbs was en­cour­aged by the may­ors them­selves, every time that the phe­nom­e­non of Lib­er­tad Avanza grew in their ter­ri­to­ries and threat­ened their sur­vival, is com­bined with two other be­hav­iors: ab­sen­teeism and blank vote. On Sun­day 13, 1,438,897 less vot­ers went to the polls than in 2019 and, of those who did go to the polls, 1,148,342 voted blank. Or if you pre­fer, out of 35 mil­lion peo­ple who were el­i­gi­ble to vote, 11 mil­lion ab­stained.

The sec­ond place was ob­tained by Jun­tos por el Cam­bio (To­gether for Change), the only party that re­ally dis­puted its in­ter­nal con­test in the PASO. There, Pa­tri­cia Bull­rich won (4,022,466 votes, 16.98%) against Ho­ra­cio Ro­dríguez Lar­reta (2,675,563 votes, 11.30%). To­gether, they ob­tained 28% of the PASO, un­doubt­edly a mea­ger re­sult for the party. Fur­ther­more, the com­pe­ti­tion for the same elec­torate as Javier Milei, places the tra­di­tional first na­tional party right wing in a com­pli­cated sce­nario for Oc­to­ber.

In the PASO of 2019, the Jun­tos por el Cam­bio for­mula, Mauri­cio Macri – Miguel Pichetto, had ob­tained 7,825,998, i.e. 1,127,969 more than this last elec­tion. There, surely, the lit­tle weight that Lar­reta, the Head of Gov­ern­ment of the City of Buenos Aires, ob­tained in the na­tional ter­ri­tory, but also in his own com­mune, his own house, his own show­case, was de­ci­sive. Il­lu­sioned with the tra­jec­tory of his for­mer boss Mauri­cio Macri, he imag­ined the pas­sage from the gov­ern­ment of the city to the gov­ern­ment of the Na­tion with­out fur­ther ob­sta­cle and ended up in a re­sound­ing de­feat. He proved to be a man­ager, but not a politi­cian. The PRO is also a great re­cy­cling garbage can.

And, fi­nally, Per­o­nism suf­fered a his­toric de­feat, pierc­ing its elec­toral floor. Since 2015, Per­o­nism has not been able to find the pulse of its own ills. A Kirch­ner­ism that has not been pu­ri­fied or starved to death in any of its ver­sions. A league of gov­er­nors with­out com­pass or elec­toral weight. A Buenos Aires Per­o­nism and a vice-pres­i­dent who marked the fi­nal cards of the cur­rent pres­i­dent Al­berto Fer­nan­dez. So far, the Per­o­nist hege­mony in the Sen­ate, founded in the year 83′ and never ques­tioned, is over. But in ad­di­tion, as a symp­tom of the times, Massa lost in Ti­gre, his home­town, and the Kirch­n­ers lost in Santa Cruz. The cri­sis of the two par­ent com­pa­nies, ac­cord­ing to Car­los Pagni.

Ser­gio Massa, the can­di­date of ur­gency, the only can­di­date with votes 24 hours be­fore the clos­ing of the list. The can­di­date of a Min­istry of Econ­omy with in­fla­tion and poverty in­dexes that de­stroy in sec­onds any po­lit­i­cal iden­tity. With­out an elec­toral cam­paign, with­out chiefs or bosses to es­cort them, Ser­gio Massa had a de­cent per­for­mance that he will have to thank Axel Ki­cillof for, the only Per­o­nist can­di­date who in his dis­pute for the gu­ber­na­to­r­ial can­di­dacy in the province of Buenos Aires re­tained the hand­ful of vot­ers that can put the rul­ing party in the bal­lotage.

All these el­e­ments make up a new elec­toral and po­lit­i­cal map that clearly de­scribes an end of cy­cle. Pro­found changes in po­lit­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tion, re­flect­ing a bro­ken, frag­mented and in­di­vid­u­al­ized so­ci­ety, as well de­scribed by José Natan­son. Milei is a bit the vote of Tik Tok, but also of those who can­not imag­ine los­ing rights be­cause they no longer have them or never had them. To imag­ine los­ing your re­tire­ment, first you must be a for­mal worker.  In ad­di­tion, a his­tor­i­cal de­feat of Per­o­nism as a party and move­ment that or­dered power in Ar­gentina and built pow­er­ful hori­zons of equal­ity and in­te­gra­tion un­der “so­cial jus­tice”. This his­tor­i­cal slo­gan, which, with­out so­cial in­car­na­tion, to­day Milei can turn into a slo­gan and call to de­stroy it. Per­o­nism, which placed the State and with it the rights at the dis­posal of the ma­jori­ties, to­day leaves them out in the open. In the face of noth­ing­ness, Milei’s mag­i­cal and sim­plis­tic dis­course is at­trac­tive, sum­mon­ing and an es­cape point for so much dis­com­fort.

The elec­toral chess­board forces to think of an­other elec­toral cam­paign. Rearm­ing agree­ments, look­ing for al­lies in old trai­tors and re­do­ing tight math­e­mat­i­cal cal­cu­la­tions with scarce votes.  We are fac­ing a triple tie and the end only brings un­cer­tainty. “Any­thing can hap­pen” is the phrase that runs through the analy­sis of the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion. But we are not fac­ing a 2001 (dis­so­lu­tion of the state and mon­e­tary au­thor­ity) nor a be­fore 2015, where Daniel Sci­oli could show Mauri­cio Macri wel­fare in­di­ca­tors of a gov­ern­ment that was leav­ing through the big door. In fact, Cristina Fer­nan­dez knew how to make her farewell as pres­i­dent a po­lit­i­cal and col­lec­tive event. This post-pan­demic fate is not that of Al­berto Fer­nán­dez or his vice-pres­i­dent.

The clock is tick­ing too slowly for a peo­ple that will spend a se­mes­ter im­mersed in an elec­toral process that is once again viewed with dis­tance and dis­trust.

*Pro­fes­sor and re­searcher at CON­ICET, UBA and IEALC.

Cover im­age: www.el­ci­u­dadanoweb.com