It’s not over yet, but we Argentines can now confirm it without any doubt: this is the dirtiest election campaign since the return of democracy in 1983. A pathetic performance for a contest already characterized by the shallowness of the main candidates and lack of consistency proposals and lack of a common vision for the future of the country.
The examples are piling up. They range from the distribution of photos of the chief of staff of the province of Buenos Aires – the country’s most populous district – on board the yacht Bandido with an escort to the distribution of audio messages from Patricia Bullrich, who later became Minister of Economy. . And also confirmation of the existence of an illegal secret service operation against the main campaign teams.
However, these are not the only milestones in a very lackluster campaign. An intimate video of an electoral figure with a person who is not his partner is also circulating on digital platforms such as Telegram and WhatsApp. And countless audios, photos and fake news that try to wear down competing candidates without thinking that they are also wearing down the very concept of democracy.
Of course, Argentina has had dark episodes of conflict in the recent past. There is, shamefully, the operetta that propagated Kirchnerism against the opposition candidate Francisco de Narváez in 2009 in order to involve him in the drug trade. Or four years earlier, another Kirchnerist operetta against Enrique Olivera, a bishop of the opposition Lillita Carrió, who was falsely accused of hiding two bank accounts in Switzerland. Not to be forgotten are the Federal Intelligence Agency’s (AFI) illegal tasks of spying on Mauricio Macri’s election rivals from the opposition and within Together for Change.
The difference, however, is that these were dark but to some extent episodic episodes, whereas this election campaign will go down in history for its general sordidness. The traps reach the teams of the libertarian Javier Milei, the two pre-candidates for the presidency of Together for Change, Bullrich and Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, the governor Axel Kicillof, who sounded like a possible candidate for the Casa Rosada, and several other candidates of all kinds of elected offices, including mayors.
At this point, let’s make one key point clear: these are not negative campaigns, but dirty campaigns. Are very different. A negative campaign means accusing a rival head-on, showing his face and relying on real data. Example: Candidate A accuses Candidate B in a television ad of concealing a court conviction for tax evasion and shows a copy of the court ruling.
A dirty campaign is completely different. Example: Candidate A pays shadow journalists or influencers to spread lies against Candidate B with the sole aim of draining votes and, if possible, winning them for themselves.
In this sense, Gastón Douek and Fernando Cerimedo are just two of the many Argentine agents who amass fortunes by always hovering on the edge of offside in football terms and praying that the VAR doesn’t catch them. The difference is that both – who have had experience and controversy in Brazil, Mexico and other countries – have at least publicly admitted that they resort to, for example, troll farms on social networks, among other tools, to defend their customers and attack others. their rivals. But many other contractors remain in the shadows, standing by as killers.
At this point it is worth raising another caveat: Argentina is not alone in the quagmire. The presidential elections in Brazil represented a milestone in the history of electoral disgrace. Fake news reached unprecedented levels. Likewise, we could cite shameful examples from recent campaigns in Colombia, Chile, Peru, Paraguay, Spain and other Latin American countries.
In Argentina, a peculiarity may explain why this year has been so dirty. This is the first election since 1983 in which three candidates have some probability of winning, unlike the nine previous elections in which the bid was decided between at most two candidates, as three of them was almost a no-brainer. Carlos Menem and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
Such a trail of dirt forces us to ask ourselves several questions. Why is a dirty campaign being launched? Are they trying to overshadow an inconvenient truth with lies? Who is being attacked and why are they being attacked? Who could be behind this campaign? Who is spreading it? Where and how does it spread? And most importantly: who benefits from this attack?
Another not insignificant fact about these operettas and racks, as we in Argentina call accusations based on half-truths, outright lies and illegal methods such as wiretapping and hidden cameras, is that dirty campaigns sometimes make us forget the essentials: to demand that candidates say what concrete, solid and consistent proposals they have to reverse our problems. With annual inflation exceeding 140%, economic stagnation and more than 40% of Argentines plunged into poverty, what do they plan to do to reverse this?
We Argentines will go to the polls this Sunday. And we may have to vote again on November 19th if a runoff is necessary. Hopefully, we voters will focus on each candidate’s proposals beyond the nastiness that is circulating or may emerge in the coming days. The same proposals about which we know the opinions and little else, even after two debates in which there were a lot of empty phrases. But this is another story.
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