My thanks to Forumland for reminding me what today was.
Anyway, today was PASO day in Argentina, the nation's primary election. Any party with more than 1.5% of the vote would go on to the general election on October 27, which is what this thread will be about. Incumbent president Mauricio Macri suffered a heavy setback tonight when his PRO-and-UCR-dominated Juntos por el Cambio came in a fairly distant second to the Frente de Todos, led by the Justicialists and their candidate, former Chief of the Council of Ministers Alberto Fernandez(and the real power behind the sash, his running mate and former president Cristina Kirchner). In third place, Consenso Federal, led by former Economy Minister Roberto Lavagna, was the only other coalition that got over 1 million votes. Here's tonight's results: https://resultados2019.gob.ar/enr#/
Macri's had an uphill climb for re-election since polls were started last year considering his close second-round victory in '15. Argentina's fragile economy went back into recession last year, triggering yet another IMF loan of AR$2.28 trillion(US$57.3 billion) and the 2018 drought decimated the country's soybean crop, which is one of the nation's biggest exports. On top of this, the Macri Administration's 2016 cancellation of state subsidies for public utilities has proved extremely unpopular due to the rise in energy bills. His shift in foreign policy to one more aligned with the US, as opposed to their traditionally region-focused stance, has also caused a lot of discussion as has the failed attempts to legalise abortion in the country. All of this means that Argentinian voters are looking for a return to Peronist normalcy as shown tonight.
The three top candidates will be described shortly, but first, here's how the October vote will go. Argentina has a unique runoff format called a ballotage election. If you get at least 45% of the vote in Round One, you're elected. If you get between 40-45% in Round One but your nearest competitor is at least 10 points behind, you're elected. Anything else goes to a second round. Plus, a good chunk of Congress is also up for grabs. Half of the 257 seats in the Chamber of Deputies will be up using D'Hondt PR with a 3% threshold. A third of the country's 72 Senate seats will also be decided, three seats from seven provinces and Buenos Aires. The top polling party will get two seats, the runner-up will get the remaining one.
There's a lot of candidates, so we're going to look at the top three tickets, the ones most likely to go to a second round. Let's meet the candidates!
Juntos por el Cambio - Mauricio Macri and Miguel Pichetto(Centre-Right)
When Macri was elected back in '15, he was the first president to be neither Peronist nor Radical since Hipolito Yrigoyen was elected in 1916. Even so, it was with Radical Civic Union(UCR) support that he and his party, the Republican Proposal(PRO) got into the Casa Rosada and leads in both houses. Before the presidency, he was Mayor of Buenos Aires from 2007-2015. Before that, he served in a variety of executive positions including as chairman of Boca Juniors, VP and later President of Sevel Argentina(making Fiats and Peugeots) and for Citibank Argentina. His current VP, Gabriela Michetti, decided not to run for a second term alongside him, so taking her place is Senate Minority Leader Miguel Pichetto. Although he's a Justicialist, he supports a lot of Macri's measures and is seen as a way to bring in PJ voters. Pichetto is finishing his third term as a Senator for Rio Negro, where he's quite a major figure in provincial politics, having served as a senator, a deputy(and a member of the Council of Magistrates at the same time) and as a provincial legislator.
Macri and Pichetto's goals are(as are all of the candidates) primarily domestic in nature. Macri wants to expand free trade agreements, provide incentives to lure global investment, and pass a controversial pension reform to lower Argentina's debts while limiting the power of the country's powerful CGT(the nation's major labour federation) and other unions. They are currently in second place with a polling average of 34.5% and got 32.4% in the primary election
Frente por Todos - Alberto Fernandez and Cristina Kirchner(Centre-Left
Some would put this ranking backwards claiming that Kirchner is actually the one in charge. Both are Justicialists(Peronists-who dominate the coalition), and Fernandez's major office before running for the presidency was as Chief of the Cabinet under both Cristina Kirchner and her predecessor and late husband, Nestor Kirchner. He resigned, however, in 2008 after he failed to stem the Argentinian Farm Crisis of that year(where export duties on soybeans rose to 44% making them extremely expensive to export to Asia and North America). He later became head of the Buenos Aires City Party, but stayed mostly behind the scenes. His candidacy for the presidency took many by surprise as most expected Kirchner to run for a second term of her own. Instead, she decided to run as Fernandez's running mate.
Kirchner is a highly divisive figure in Argentina. On the one hand, she renationalised YPF(the country's oil company) and the social security system, introduced monthly subsidies for parents with children or the disabled, liberalised media laws, legalised same-sex marriage and passed the Gender Identity Law, considered one of the most progressive transgender rights laws in the world. Much of this was done, of course, with the help of her allies in Congress. On the other hand, a lot of these laws have made her quite unpopular with more conservative elements in the country, and she has a corruption rap sheet several miles high. She has been indicted for obstruction of justice, embezzlement, corruption, and even treason for her alleged actions in the infamous K-Money Scandal(where billions of Pesos allocated for public works projects was being funneled out of the treasury and sent to international tax havens, allegedly at Kirchner's behest) and the deliberate selling of US Dollar futures from the government at abnormally low prices. Since she left the presidency, however, she's been a Senator for Buenos Aires Province(as opposed to the city itself), which means she's immune from prosecution as long as she's in office.
Fernandez and Kircher want to deflate the Peso while keeping domestic consumer demand up, have Congress reconsider the latest free trade agreement between the EU and MERCOSUR, increase job protections in future agreements to keep industries in Argentina, lower interest rates from their current extremely high 60%, and renegotiate the IMF loan agreement to extend the payment schedule and add money to the country's social security, which would come from lower central bank loan payments, which would in turn come from the lower interest rates.
Tonight, they got 47.2% of the vote and have similar showings in the polls, suggesting a first-round victory.
Consenso Federal 2030- Roberto Lavagna and Juan Manuel Urtubey(Centre with parties from all sides)
At 77, Lavagna is the oldest of the three candidates(Fernandez and Macri are both 60), and was one of the original architects of MERCOSUR. He served as Industry and Foreign Commerce Secretary in the mid 80s under President Raul Alfonsin and then as Economy Minister under Eduardo Duhalde and Nestor Kirchner for a time. He was mysteriously forced to resign in 2005, allegedly because of opposition to Nestor Kirchner's cartelisation tactics that were apparently a personal vendetta against Public Works Minister Julio de Vido. Since then, he has been a major TV figure for any network who needs an economics expert. He's also become something of a rallying point for Dissident Justicialists who are opposed to Kirchnerism, the direction the Justicialists have taken since the Kirchners came in. He and his running mate are both Justicialists, but their main support comes from the Socialists, Christian Democrats, and the Freemen of the South Movement as well as other third-positionist movements. His running mate, Urtubey, is a seasoned politician finishing up his third term as Governor of Salta. His brother has served as a Federal Senator, and he's a staunch Anti-Kirchnerist.
Lavagna thinks inflation is being worsened by shortages of domestic goods, so he wants to increase production to bring prices down. He also supports lowering interest rates and extending the IMF payment schedule, and he sees increased domestic activity as the key to Argentina's economic recovery.
They got 8.4% of the vote tonight, which is on par with the latest polls.
So after this long post, who do you support, NSG?
In my mind, in spite of all the good she did, Kirchner's pulling the strings combined with her corruption makes her, and Fernandez by extension, unpalatable for me. I'm standing with Lavagna for president...knowing there's no real chance of that happening,
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