Argentina’s race for the October 22 presidential election gets underway this Sunday after a dizzying final qualifying round. Peronism, which wanted To two competing candidates, changed its mind within 24 hours and will compete with one unit pilot: Sergio Massa, the man in charge of navigating the difficult waters of Argentina’s economy. The decision of the alliance Unión por la Patria (heirs to the ruling Frente de Todos) leaves a vacuum in the centre-left party dominated by Kirchnerism for the past two decades, underscores the growing weakness of Cristina Kirchner and marks the definitive turning point of the Argentine Suffrage campaign on the right.
Massa, a 51-year-old politician, has been waiting his whole life for this moment. In 2015 he could not do it alone, but he now hopes to take the presidency, wrapped in the three currents of Peronism: the one responding to Kirchner, President Alberto Fernández and himself. With well-established ties to big businessmen, bankers and the US embassy, Massa Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, mayor of Buenos Aires and candidate for the opposition Juntos por el Cambio coalition, will challenge the centrist vote.
However, Rodríguez Larreta must first pass the primary elections on August 13, where he will face his rival Patricia Bullrich, former security minister. Bullrich’s profile is more conservative than that of Rodríguez Larreta, but less than that of ultra-liberal economist Javier Milei, who marks the collapse of the far right for the first time in an Argentine presidential election. At the other end of the ideological spectrum, the left looks forward to improving its results if it can attract Peronists disillusioned with Massa’s leadership. Among them are Kirchnerists who see the minister as a traitor and warn against voting for him, but Unión por la Patria trusts that they will change their minds when the crucial moment arrives.
economic management
Massa’s candidacy will put the economy at the center of Argentina’s election debate and any bad economic news will work against him. The Peronist minister, who has not yet said when he will step down from the ministry to focus on the campaign, will come under attack from all sides. “The arsonist enlists as the fireman,” Bullrich tweeted when the Peronist electoral formula became official. “On one side Massa, on the other Larreta. “Two sides of the same coin,” said Milei.
In 2023, inflation in Argentina is on the rise, reaching 114% yoy in May, a record for more than three decades. The central bank’s international reserves are below minimum and the country relies on the International Monetary Fund to restructure its debt to keep from shaking an economy battered by the worst drought in history. In any other country in the world, choosing the head of the economics department as a candidate would seem like a joke or a suicide. On the contrary: no Peronist currently has more internal support than Massa.
“Argentina, you wouldn’t understand,” a foreigner asking about the Peronist candidacy might get the answer. Diego Genoud, author of the biography El arribista del poder, Massa’s non-advertising story, explains that this is partly due to the minister’s great ability to convey as truth the message he desired. “He saved us from the worst, that’s the conclusion,” says Genoud. Massa took over the Commerce Department in August amid a currency crisis that caused the peso to depreciate more than 30% against the dollar in informal markets in just two weeks. His arrival at the Palacio de Hacienda temporarily calmed the waves.
His predecessor, Silvina Batakis, was abruptly dismissed before completing the month of management. Massa’s candidacy, announced Friday night by the Union for the Fatherland (UP) alliance, was also a ruthless checkmate for the two previous candidates: the ambassador to Brazil, Daniel Scioli, who is supported by Fernández, and the interior minister, Eduardo de Pedro, a member of the “decimated generation” because he was the son of those who disappeared from the dictatorship and is considered Cristina Kirchner’s husband.
De Pedro’s candidacy lasted 24 hours. The rejection of many provincial governors and mayors of Buenos Aires – symbol of power in the territory – was the key to internal order under a single name: Massa. Therein lies another of his qualities, according to Genoud: “Massa has a support that very few have because he can reach them from antagonistic sectors, he can bring together the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cristina, water and oil.” The candidate for the office of Vice President , the current chief of staff, Agustín Rossi, was placed by Fernández in a movement exposing the loss of power of Kirchnerism, which will take refuge in the province of Buenos Aires and in the legislative chambers.
primaries in August
August 13th will be an opportunity to gauge actual popular support for each candidate. The simultaneous and mandatory primary elections in Argentina will serve to clarify candidatures in some political sectors – such as Together for Change (JxC) and the Left – but it is also a major nationwide poll two months before the presidential election.
The latest polls, which still do not take into account last-minute moves, revealed a third-part scenario between Peronism, JxC and La Libertad Avanza de Milei.
The far-right’s poor results in the provincial elections suggest that Milei’s candidacy could falter as the campaign progresses. However, like in Brazil with Jair Bolsonaro and in the United States with Donald Trump, his election proposals have shaped the debate in recent months. Milei promises to dollarize the economy, abolish the central bank, privatize state-owned companies and open arms sales.
Milei’s move spelled a blow in the polls for the center-right United for Change coalition, forcing its candidates to defy her. Bullrich decided to sharpen his speech with a strong word: “Order”. For months he has been promising a strong hand against crime and drug trafficking and has assured that he will end the blockades of streets and highways in protest.
Rodríguez Larreta has chosen to surround himself with conservative personalities. The governor of northern Jujuy province, Gerardo Morales, who is under surveillance because of the massive protests for higher wages and against constitutional reform, is accompanying him as a candidate for vice president, and his list of senators will include liberal economist José Luis Espert, a former Associate of Milei and leading evangelist Cynthia Hotton. Whoever wins, the next government will be further to the right than the current one.
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