The Argentine electoral campaign opened a new chapter this Monday facing the runoff between the Minister of Economy Sergio Massa, the most voted in the first round, and the libertarian Javier Milei, still affected by the setback of going from favorite to having to overcome seven points away.
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Massa, who obtained 36.6% of the votes, emerges strengthened as a leader capable of gaining support despite an annual inflation of 140% and with four weeks ahead in which any economic slip will be a fall.
“What is disputed is what the framework of the upcoming election will be: whether as Milei proposes ‘continuity vs change’; or as Massa proposes ‘government of national unity vs leap into the void’,” Sergio Morresi told AFP. , professor and Doctor in Political Science from the University of San Pablo.
Meanwhile, the rearmament of the strategies for the second round on November 19 will be a thorny path for Milei in need of conquering the only portion of the electorate that can be related to him: that which voted for Patricia Bullrich (Together for Change, right) , third with 23.8% of the votes, according to analysts.
“How am I not going to incorporate her, if she has been successful in combating insecurity,” Milei said about the former Minister of Security, in an interview with El Observador radio this Monday.
“The crack is over”
No sooner had the result been known, Milei (29.9%) had already tried a drastic change in strategy on Sunday and picked up Bullrich’s main campaign sword: “End Kirchnerism.”
“We are in the race and we have a chance to win,” the far-right candidate said this Monday on La Red radio. “Two thirds (of the electorate) do not want Kirchnerism,” he added.
But the play has dilemmas. “Massa is not a Kirchnerist. Massa is a Massist,” Morresi clarified. Massa says ‘I am not responsible for the cultural struggles that Kirchnerism has promoted,’ he talks about his future government, not this government, he talks about a broader alliance, not about bringing Kirchnerism back to power,” he added.
In his speech on Sunday, the minister of the center-left coalition Unión por la Patria assured that “the rift is over” after reiterating that, if he wins the presidency, he will call on all forces to build a unity government.
“It seems a mistake to propose that the next stage be linked only to Peronism,” Massa told reporters on Monday. “We are going to a government of national unity. I am going to convene the best of the different political forces, regardless of their origin, because I believe that we have to build State policies.”
Fear of the chainsaw
Massa “fulfills more (than Milei) with the ‘physique du role’ of a president: one sees a president in him,” political analyst and consultant Raúl Timerman told AFP.
In his opinion, the flow of votes he obtained despite being the Minister of Economy of an economy in crisis represents that “he was perceived by the electorate as the most capable of presiding over the country in a situation of chaos like the one it is experiencing now.” .
Added to the runaway inflation is the exchange rate run while the annual interest rate is 133% and poverty reaches 40%.
This Monday the Stock Market collapsed 12.36%, but after several days of gains. Bonds in dollars also fell and the parallel or ‘blue’ dollar was quoted at 1,100 pesos per note, an increase of 22% compared to Friday. In the official market it is listed at 365.50 pesos.
“The market is beginning to digest that the match is open,” Alejandro Bianchi, from Investment Advisor, told AFP.
The proposal for dollarization, privatization and abrupt cuts in public spending represented by the lit chainsaw that Milei brandished in his rallies, “from something funny turned into a frightening element,” said Timerman.
“People think ‘this one is coming to destroy everything’ and there are those who want to maintain certain rights,” he said.
Massa interpreted the vote in this sense by indicating that the country “will face” the reforms that the 21st century imposes, “without this meaning giving up the protection of rights that Argentina has built over many years and that have to do with with the care of the most vulnerable”.
new congress
However, the flow of votes from the far right represented a reconfiguration for the National Congress, where it went from having three deputies to a bloc of 38.
The Peronist Unión por la Patria (UP) lost 10 seats and will be the first minority in the Chamber of Deputies from December 10, with 108 of the 257 seats.
This new balance means that, if it is a government again, Peronism will need agreements to achieve the regulatory quorum to debate.
The second force in the lower house will continue to be Together for Change, with 93 deputies, after retaining only 31 of the 55 it put into play.
The distribution of forces will involve a careful weaving of alliances.
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