Buenos Aires – The name of the next president will be known after the second round between Sergio Massa and Javier Milei on November 19, but last Sunday’s result, which left them in first and second place, already has effects on Argentine politics. Special report by our correspondent in Buenos Aires, Natalio Cosoy.
Last Sunday Sergio Massa, Minister of Economy and official candidate, came in first place in the first round of the presidential elections, displacing the second place who came as the favorite, the libertarian and relative newcomer to politics, Javier Milei.
Argentines must return to the polls on November 19 to determine in a runoff which of the two will reach the Casa Rosada on December 10 and govern until 2027.
Out of the race was Patricia Bullrich, from Together for Change, who decided to support Milei and caused a political earthquake in her strength. The alliance also caused controversy in the libertarian ranks.
Whoever wins, a divided Congress, and a balance between the governorships of the ruling Union for the Homeland and Together for Change, will present a panorama in which the governability of The new Administration will require a constant search for consensus.
Unexpected result: Massa’s victory in the first round
There will be a second round in the presidential elections on November 19. It will be defined between the Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa (Unión por la Patria), who obtained more than 36% of the votes, and the libertarian Javier Milei (La Libertad Avanza), who came second with less than 30%; Patricia Bullrich, from Together for Change, was much further behind, with less than 24%. With much fewer votes were Juan Schiaretti, from Hacemos por Nuestro País (less than 7%) and Myriam Bregman, from the Left Front (less than 3%).
Last Sunday’s result was unexpected. Most of the polls and analyzes gave Javier Milei the winner, but from early on, after the closing of voting centers, in the libertarian bunker they assumed that there would be a runoff with Massa, although they did not see themselves in second place yet. . Massa finished first, being the Minister of Economy of a country with almost 140% inflation and more than 40% poverty. The polls did not completely ignore the situation: this was the worst result for Peronism in a general election for president.
The most interesting thing happened in the candidates’ speeches at the end of the night. While Massa called for national unity and summoned all sectors, Milei left aside the central speech of his campaign, the attack on “the caste”, which he unified under a common denominator of rejection of Unión por la Patria and Juntos por el Change, to seek to bring closer positions with Patricia Bullrich, with her voters, under the banner of anti-Kirchnerism or anti-Peronism.
Thus, what seemed like a movement that could break the logic of the rift that has organized Argentine politics in recent years, returns, in Milei’s words, to feeding that logic, in which the great electoral flag of what is not Peronism (or, in this case, its Kirchnerist version) is nothing more than the proposal to end that movement, or at least defeat it politically.
And it is Massa in this context who comes out to say that the rift has come to an end. Perhaps what is coming to an end, or at least losing centrality, is Kirchnerism as the hegemonic current of Peronismwhich may give rise to massism, perhaps to another new conformation of that political force that, with metamorphoses that have taken it from neoliberalism to the left, since 1945 has always been present on the Argentine political scene and is one of the ordering axes of discourse and dispute.
Tectonic movements in Argentine political geography
In search of votes outside his space, Milei insisted that he would have a place for Bullrich in his government and even for the left, which he attacked on numerous occasions during the campaign and before. On Wednesday, October 25, after several comings and goings, Patricia Bullrich announced her support for Milei’s candidacy, with whom she had had strong confrontations during the campaign.
“WHEN THE COUNTRY IS IN DANGER, EVERYTHING IS ALLOWED, EXCEPT NOT DEFENDING IT.”
With @luispetri We ratify our staunch defense of the values of change and freedom. The urgency of the moment challenges us not to be neutral in the face of the danger of the continuity of… pic.twitter.com/77r5ql94LF
— Patricia Bullrich (@PatoBullrich) October 25, 2023
That generated an earthquake in Together for Change: two of its main parties, the Radical Civic Union (UCR) and the Civic Coalition, said that they do not agree with that decision and that they do not support either candidate. And in the same PRO of Patricia Bullrich and former president Mauricio Macri there were dissents.
The main one was that of the former presidential candidate, who lost the primaries against Bullrich, and current head of government of the City of Buenos Aires, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, who also did not support either of the two candidates. Larreta did call for the unity of Together for Change, although the UCR said that Bullrich’s decision, supported by Macri, puts them in a position to abandon the coalition. The internal discussion is not closed.
For their part, the elected and current governors of Together for Change, who will govern ten provinces starting in December, They issued a statement in which they distanced themselves from Bullrich’s position and ratified the unity of that coalition.
To Bullrich’s announcement, Milei responded with a tweet showing a children’s cartoon-style drawing in which a lion (a symbol of her party) hugs a duck (Patricia Bullrich is nicknamed Pato).
Milei also tried to extend his hand to the left, which he had insulted on numerous occasions. Predictably, this movement rejected the offer to participate in an eventual minarchist government.
Immediately, Liliana Salinas, elected provincial representative of Entre Ríos, broke with La Libertad Avanza and will create a separate parliamentary bloc.
With another strategy for the second round on November 19, on post-election Monday Massa did something unusual in Argentine politics: called, as the first contact with the media after the elections, the international correspondents who work in the country, instead of doing so with local media. France 24 en Español was there. The minister used the opportunity to present himself as a figure with international projection, an eventual head of state if he won the elections, something that was later reflected by the domestic press. Was it planned?
In addition to the strategies that the campaigns implement in the coming days, the candidates will face each other in a debate that will take place on November 12, which will surely arouse special interest.
Other crucial positions: governors and legislators
In the October 22 elections, local and national legislative positions, among others, were also contested. Two key elections were those for the Governor of the province of Buenos Aires, the largest in terms of population in the entire country, and the most important in economic participation, and that of the City of Buenos Aires, the country’s political epicenter and second district. due to the size of its economy.
In the province, the candidate of Unión por la Patria, Axel Kicillof, achieved re-election, with almost 45% of the votes, surpassing Néstor Grindetti, from Together for Change (less than 27%) and Carolina Píparo, from La Libertad Avanza (just over 25.5%). The victory consolidates the figure of Kicillof in Peronism. If Massa wins the presidential election, they will be able to support each other; If Milei wins, Kicillof will become the great Peronist counterweight to the libertarian in the structure of governors, very valuable in a federal country like Argentina.
In the City of Buenos Aires the fight was very close, so much so that a second round was anticipated between Jorge Macri, from Together for Change and cousin of the former president, and Leandro Santoro, from Unión por la Patria. To avoid it, Macri needed to exceed 50% of the votes, but he was a few tenths away. Finally, in agreement within Union for the Homeland, Leandro Santoro gave up participating in a runoff. She thus avoids facing a second round in which she would surely lose and would link the local election to the national one, in which Patricia Bullrich now supports Milei.
With the triumph of Jorge Macri, who will replace Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, the PRO (today part of Together for Change) will reach twenty years of continuous government in the city in 2027, which has since been its great bastion and electoral springboard.
With the results of all the provincial elections, ten remained in the hands of Together for Change (with a very good performance of the UCR) and ten of Union for the Homeland. Dissident Peronism kept Córdoba, in the center of the country. In Patagonia, in Neuquén it was in the hands of a provincial movement allied to Together for Change, and in Río Negro and Santa Cruz, of local forces.
After the legislative elections, in principle – the final count is being completed –, No party will have its own majorities in either chamber.. That will be a test for the governability of anyone who reaches the Presidency, especially if this is the case of Milei, which in addition to having fewer deputies and senators than the other two main forces, would not have any governor from its party (those from Juntos for Change said that they will be opposition no matter who wins)
The next mandate will present, whatever it may be, a challenge of building consensus for whoever comes to govern the nation on December 10, when Argentina marks 40 years since the return of democracy.
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