Argentina is a country where no universal rules apply and where the law of gravity can be reversed at any time. This is the only way to explain why, in a country grappling with a systemic crisis of monumental proportions, polls show that the ruling party and major opposition leaders can win, lose or even be banned from the vote.
We Argentines are used to moving in the anomaly, to the annoyance of the Anglo-Saxons, although we also displace many Latin Americans. Example? The ruling party has just nominated its economy minister as presidential candidate, who promised to bring down inflation when he took office almost 11 months ago, but the opposite has happened. Today we’re looking at an increase of 114% per year, which experts say will be close to 150% by the end of the year.
The election scenario today is so closed and uncertain that this candidate, the Peronist Sergio Massa, can win, just as he could even come third in the October elections, which would be an unprecedented slap in the face for Peronism. Libertarian Javier Milei could sideline him, although his candidacy also involves a giant unknown. Because all their candidates have lost in every provincial election so far – by defeats. Example? Yesterday, his “chicken” finished fourth in the election of the next governor of Cordoba, Argentina’s second most populous province, with just 2.49% of the vote.
Javier Miley. LUIS ROBAYO (AFP)
Milei isn’t shy, however, and she’s right when she says she can win, recalling the tortuous path that led Mauricio Macri to Casa Rosada eight years ago. “In 2015, Macri lost 11 previous provincial elections and was president.” That’s true, but it could also happen that he finished third in October and thus be eliminated in the second round.
And what about Together for Change, the alliance founded by Mauricio Macri? For a long year he has been looking forward to regaining the power he lost in 2019. He has candidates, he has structure, he has money, and he intends to vote. But he is bleeding to death in internal struggles, most notably – though not exclusively – between Horacio Rodríguez Larreta and Patricia Bullrich, who will decide who will win the candidacy in August’s primary.
Together for Change thus became the only one of the three spaces with real ambitions to reach the Casa Rosada, which will use the primaries for what they were created for: to settle the internal power struggles. This can strengthen the one who wins… or destroy their dreams. And it could happen that whoever wins the primaries goes from champion-to-be to “little onion,” as we say in Argentina, and is disqualified from voting.
But Argentina’s anomalies don’t end there. Firstly, because all polls reveal citizens’ weariness towards the current situation and towards politicians, which is reflected in a record number of abstentions and empty votes since the return of democracy in 1983. But the provincial elections gave way again and again The victory of the governing parties. Even in Córdoba, where former President Mauricio Macri has his stronghold, the prevailing Peronism triumphed.
In this context, the only apparent consensus is that the candidate who is not a Kirchnerist will win. However, this data ignores one final paradox: current Vice President and powerhouse Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is not in this competition and has not anointed a dolphin, but she may emerge victorious.
How is it possible? Should Massa and the Peronists promoting her candidacy lose, she will retain leadership within Peronism while focusing her energies on retaining her crucial enclave: the province of Buenos Aires. Whether you resist or dream of returning to Casa Rosada in 2027. As Andrés Malamud, one of the clearest political analysts, summarized: “Cristina wins, there is no other interpretation.”
Argentina is indeed a peculiar country where even the law of gravity can be reversed at any time.
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