Argentina is a normal country. As long as the anomaly is normal. Because only this country is struggling to top the global annual inflation podium while simultaneously flirting with a currency boost, seeing its national debt default again, stagnating for a decade, with rising poverty rates, and having its president and economy minister begging the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for it Mercy and more money, while his vice president — and actual head of the ruling party — publicly flouts that body.
Now our normal anomaly has just given us a new chapter. The Supreme Court stayed elections due to be held in two provinces five days later over the possibility that they would violate the Republican core of our national constitution. Nearly nothing. And what reactions did he get? Well, the usual. Some are for it – because it benefits them – and others against – because it harms them. The curious? Some of the critics had praised very similar rulings made by the country’s highest court four years ago, although of course they had benefited from them at the time.
So everything is quite normal in an abnormal country.
The court granted two precautionary measures suspending this Sunday’s elections in Tucumán and San Juan and asked the protagonists for more information before making its substantive decision. It will determine whether the governors of those provinces can seek new mandates—whether as governor or lieutenant governor—or whether their eventual re-election violates the Republican system of government. Because? Because both would extend their takeover of power well beyond a long decade.
If that’s the gist of what happened, then there’s also the context. Two pieces of information: first, that the ministers of the Court made this decision while the ruling party is promoting a political process against them; Second, that the decision directly affects two Peronist governors and indirectly the national government, which expected victories in both provinces and thus some breathing space for their failing management.
This context explains why the government introduced the caps. President Alberto Fernández criticized the decision and the court on national television, in line with officials, lawmakers, human rights organizations close to Kirchnerism and many others.
However, to add spice to the matter, the court’s tentative decision is nothing new. Not at all. It records three antecedents – albeit with differences – to similar attempts by provincial leaders in the last decade. The country’s highest court has thus drawn a red line for the re-election of the governors in Santiago del Estero (2013), La Rioja (2019) and Río Negro (also 2019).
This last source provided a new example of our normal anomaly. The country’s current justice minister, Martín Soria, described the court decision as “an interference” by the court in the “democratic process”. But when he contested the governorship of Río Negro four years ago and the ruling at the time hurt his direct rival, he celebrated what had happened. “Luckily the court stopped him.”
To make matters worse, the court’s preliminary decision isn’t a complete miracle either. Constitutionalists are divided between those who define it as acceptable, those who oppose it, and those who argue that it is at the very least inappropriate and perhaps dangerous. Among these, the distinguished Andrés Gil Domínguez stands out, who stated on Twitter that “the precautionary suspension of an election by the provincial authorities five days after its conclusion, when there was still time to clarify the merits of the problem, does very serious harm” the democratic system of Argentina and brings the used legal reasoning into a crisis”.
So we suspended the election when everything was ready for this Sunday – including the printing of the ballots – and we’re adding even more abnormality to our normal anomaly, to which everyone contributes. Because, as one of our clearest political analysts recalled, both governors knew they were playing to the limit when launching a new candidacy. His silent premise was clear: “If it happened, it happened.”
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