There are three days left for the primary elections in Argentina and there is an unprecedented silence in the streets of Buenos Aires. A climate as rarefied as that of this southern winter without cold. The violent death of Morena Domínguez, an eleven-year-old girl who was the victim of a robbery, has knocked out a country that is at the gates of one of the most uncertain elections in its 40 years of democracy. No one knows the impact that Morena’s case will have at the polls. This Thursday the campaign closures of the main political forces were scheduled, but all the presidential candidates canceled their electoral acts due to what happened. Most have remained silent on social networks and have not granted interviews either.
On Wednesday, shortly before half past seven in the morning, two thieves attacked Morena to snatch the backpack she was carrying on the way to her primary school in Lanús, a Buenos Aires municipality close to the Argentine capital. In the struggle, the attackers pushed her to the ground and fled on a motorcycle. Morena died shortly after, already in the hospital, from the blow received.
This Thursday, a crowd gathered at the doors of the family home to say goodbye to the minor and accompany the father, Hugo Domínguez, the grandparents and siblings. Later, dozens of people marched after the funeral procession towards the cemetery with hugs, tears and applause.
Lanús has almost half a million inhabitants and is governed by the opposition coalition Together for Change. The province, on the other hand, is in the hands of the Kirchnerist Axel Kicillof. After the death of Morena, the critics did not distinguish party membership. The mayor, Néstor Grindetti, was blamed by the neighbors for having neglected the municipality to preside over the Independiente soccer club and campaign for the Buenos Aires governorship. Kicillof’s security secretary, Sergio Berni, was criticized for not guaranteeing citizen security.
police complicity
The inhabitants of Villa Diamante, the Morena neighborhood, revealed before the cameras the daily violence they suffer. A teacher said that she had been assaulted in the area days before. A mother added that she did too. It was an “announced tragedy”, several interviewees repeated. The neighbors denounced the state abandonment and the complicity of the security forces with some thieves that everyone seemed to know. They found them in a matter of hours. The suspects are two brothers aged 25 and 28 with criminal records. They are detained, accused of the crime of homicide on the occasion of robbery.
Crime has stopped short an electoral campaign monopolized by the economy. The discussions have suddenly turned towards insecurity. The presidential candidate who has bet the most on the message of a strong hand against crime is Patricia Bullrich. The former Security Minister of Mauricio Macri (2015-2019) could add votes of people outraged by the attack on Morena, but also lose them if the inhabitants of the province of Buenos Aires decide to turn their backs on Grindetti, their candidate for governor. In the latter case, it could benefit the candidate who is on the extreme right of the Argentine political spectrum, the ultra-liberal economist Javier Milei. By carambola, Bullrich’s rival in the internal JxC, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, would then come out reinforced.
Polls have always shown Bullrich ahead of Larreta, but the gap has narrowed in recent weeks. Between the two they would add up to one in three votes, according to the polls, a percentage somewhat higher than that attributed to the total of the Peronist alliance, split in primaries between the Minister of Economy Sergio Massa and the social leader Juan Grabois.
To the last-minute definition of the undecided is added the unknown of the repercussion that this fact of insecurity will have in the most populous province of Argentina, where four out of every ten votes are cast. It is not known either if abstention will decrease or increase, which has approached 30% in the provincial elections held this 2023 although voting is mandatory.
For more than a decade, successive governments have failed to respond to citizen demands. Argentines have seen how their salaries were becoming increasingly thinner in the face of voracious inflation, which is today 115.6%, a record in 30 years. The loss of purchasing power is the tip of the iceberg of socioeconomic deterioration. Many add jobs (increasingly precarious) and even then it is not enough for them to make ends meet. They travel worse. Early childhood education is worse. Even many families eat worse. The fear of children being robbed on the way to primary school is a new broken boundary. Milei drinks from that cocktail of anger and impotence, for whom the polls predict close to 20% of the votes.
This Friday the electoral ban begins and on Sunday you vote. Asked about the possible impact of the violent death of Morena, the politicians ask to wait. For the low, some referents believe that abstention will increase and others that it will benefit Bullrich or Milei. It has been a hard blow to the social spirit. On Sunday we will see how it translates at the polls.
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