The small province of San Juan, on the central-western border of Argentina, has put an end to 20 years of Peronist governments. The election of their new governor lasted almost a month. San Juan had scheduled the elections for May 14, but the Supreme Court suspended them four days before in response to a request from the opposition. The parties opposed to Peronism denounced that the current governor, Sergio Uñac, had reached the term limit, since he sought to run for re-election after having alternated as governor and deputy governor since 2011. The Supreme Court listened. Uñac was unable to run, his brother went instead, and Together for Change won a close election. This Sunday, its candidate, the national deputy Marcelo Orrego, won with 51% of the votes.
It is the second blow that Peronism receives in the provincial elections while the country awaits the general elections next October. On March 11, the small province of San Luis, in the center of the country, ousted the Rodríguez Saá brothers, who have alternated in power since 1983. The center-right alliance of Together for Change thus adds six provinces under his power: in addition to San Juan and San Luis, he renewed his power in Jujuy, maintained that of Corrientes, and governs Mendoza and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires until the end of the year, where his candidates are the strongest. Peronism maintains power in 13 provinces, with six of them still in play. So far this year, 13 of Argentina’s 24 provinces have elected new governors. Another nine will do so between now and October and two, those of Corrientes and Santiago del Estero, will renew their authorities in 2025.
San Juan elected governor three weeks after the elections in which it renewed its Legislature and defined the new mayors of its 19 municipalities. The unfolding of their elections ended up complicating Peronism: their candidates for governor lost this Sunday, but the party maintained its majority in the local congress and won the municipalities of 15 of the 19 communes on May 14.
The challenge by the Supreme Court of Governor Sergio Uñac as a candidate had hardly any repercussions when seeking blame. At the beginning of May, when three of his magistrates voted in favor of suspending the provincial elections, President Alberto Fernández denounced that the decision left “democracy hostage to a group of judges.” Then, he said that he would add the precedent to the impeachment trial that government legislators maintain against the Court for “unusual jurisprudential interpretations that allow the Judiciary to meddle in the decisions of the National Congress.” Peronism took Uñac’s victory in the province for granted, and the challenge escalated the war between the court and the Peronist government. The trial commission against the Court is back in session this week, and President Fernández has limited himself to congratulating the winner on Sunday, Marcelo Orrego.
The new governor takes office with a vengeance: in 2019 he had lost the election against Sergio Uñac by almost 20 points. A national deputy since that same year for a small local party linked to the opposition Juntos por el Cambio, he was mayor of Santa Lucía, a municipality in the south of his province, between 2011 and 2019. “It must be recognized that there is a process of 20 years of Peronism that we will have to reconsider and restructure”, said the governor, Sergio Uñac, when acknowledging defeat. His brother Rubén reached just 17% of the votes and, together with former governor José Luis Gioja, who appeared on the second Peronist list, they were seven points behind Juntos por el Cambio, with 44% of the votes as a whole. .
“More than ousting Peronism, what has been ousted is Kirchnerism,” Orrego said when celebrating his victory this Monday in a radio interview. Kirchnerism, the majority wing of Peronism that responds to the national leadership of the current vice president Cristina Kirchner, takes stock after the defeat in San Juan. Both that coup and the one in San Luis threaten his weak group of national senators, who will be renewed in October during the general elections. Peronism has 31 votes and three fixed allies among the 74 seats, three away from a majority of its own. The poor results in the local provincial elections that he thought he had won set off alarm bells: laws are approved in the Senate, but magistrates are also installed and removed.
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