1691749588 There is uncertainty in the Argentine election campaign compounded by

There is uncertainty in the Argentine election campaign, compounded by false reports on social networks

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There is uncertainty in the Argentine election campaign compounded by

11-year-old Morena Domínguez died Wednesday in a hospital in Buenos Aires province after being hit by two criminals on a motorcycle and having her cellphone taken on her way to school. Neighbors lament that it was no coincidence: in a penal district on the outskirts of Buenos Aires where they never see the police, the gang who attacked them were already known. Morena’s death, which went viral on social media through security video, has gripped the country and brought to light the pot of fake news that has dominated the political agenda ahead of this Sunday’s presidential primary. Two men, aged 25 and 28, were arrested Wednesday afternoon and charged with murder, but the perpetrator was a 14-year-old teenager for most of the day.

The suspect had a long history of arrests and his photo, name and criminal record circulated in the media as he advocated for a strong hand on crime and a lowering of the criminal age to 16 from today. Among the shouts in the air, the opposition found its first culprit. In February of this year, the Peronist MP Natalia Zaracho was arrested in a confrontation with the police of the province of Buenos Aires. As he said at the time, on his way back from Congress, he saw the police officers hitting a minor and stopped his car to confront them. “They beat him on the ground, he was drugged and you could tell he was a minor,” he said. Zaracho attempted to separate the officers by posing as a deputy, but ended up handcuffed in a squad car. The minor was the same that police arrested on Wednesday as a suspect in the girl’s crime.

Both events happened in western Lanús, a district bordering the city of Buenos Aires, which is home to half a million people. The province of Buenos Aires is the territory of Peronism, which wants to remain in government after the October generals, but Lanús is one of the main bastions of the opposition in the enemy country. The economic crisis is the big topic of this year’s elections, but in the province the debate about insecurity dominates. Around 13 million people live there – 37% of Argentina’s electorate – and prosecutors investigate an average of 277 robberies every day.

Victoria Villarruel, a pre-candidate for vice president who accompanies far-right Javier Milei, was the first politician to refer to Zaracho. He demanded on social networks that the Peronist MP be held accountable “for being an accomplice to a criminal”. I owed him explanations to the family of the murdered girl. The version that a teenager “defended” by a Peronist deputy who emerged from social movements into politics was responsible for this began to walk without a chain. It was wrong, but it captured the discussion of the final days of the campaign.

“I live in a popular neighborhood. Together with my neighbors we experience these situations on a daily basis. They will not come to explain what the daily insecurity means for our families,” replied Zaracho, a resident of the same neighborhoods in southern Buenos Aires. where Morena Dominguez died. The leader of the arm integrating with Peronism, Juan Grabois, provided a little more context: Morena’s father, a cardboard worker like Zaracho, was part of one of the co-operatives set up by his union, the Excluded Workers Movement, which makes up workers in the informal economy.

“Morena’s relatives are our colleagues, they are our brothers and the girl who is not with us today could be our daughter,” said Grabois, the ruling party’s presidential candidate, who is running to the left of current Economy Minister Sergio Massa. He is presenting himself as a pre-candidate for the government-backed entity.

Grabois, a great reference for social movements in Argentina, arouses particular suspicion from the opposition, which sees him as the actor managing street power in favor of the government. “He has built a phenomenal business in vulnerable neighborhoods,” said Diego Kravetz, head of security for the city of Lanús and candidate to succeed its mayor, on Thursday. Its political boss and current mayor, Néstor Grindetti, hopes to become governor of the province. Both aim to lead political change in the province under the auspices of Patricia Bullrich, champion of the hard wing of the “Together for Change” alliance, which is waging a tough internal battle against the capital’s mayor, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, after Sunday’s primary elections he leads the opposition.

Kravetz was the only politician to speak out on a Thursday marked by grief. In another radio interview, he met journalist Ernesto Tenembaum, who asked him why his office had targeted the teenager as responsible for the crime and insisted on pointing out Grabois and Zaracho’s responsibility. “The boy said ‘It was me,’ that’s what the court says,” Kravetz argued. Prosecutors denied this on the same radio.

Morena’s crimes and the blaming of another minor caused the “strong hand” debate to revert to an election campaign mired in the economic crisis for months. “We all hope that the perpetrators will be punished,” said the province’s current governor, Peronist Axel Kicillof, who plans to extend his mandate in October. “Yesterday I worked all day and until dawn. I’ve just gone through the media trying not to start a discussion in the trenches because it’s an extremely sensitive issue. From their group they entered the ring. Massa pointed out that “a new juvenile justice system” for minors between “14 and 18 years” was needed; Sergio Berni, Kicillof’s security minister, said he had been “fighting for years and in absolute solitude to lower the age of criminal responsibility”.

The remainder of Thursday awaited the silence of the ban on voting that begins this Friday, while residents of the Villa Diamante Morena neighborhood fired in a procession.

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