Argentina is a country where universal rules do not apply and where the law of gravity can be reversed at any time. This is the only way to explain why in a country facing a systemic crisis of monumental proportions, the polls show that the ruling party and the great opposition figures can win, lose or even be left out of the ballot.
We Argentines are used to moving in the anomaly, to the annoyance of the Anglo-Saxons, although we also displace many Latin Americans. Example? The ruling party has just anointed its Economy Minister as a candidate for President, who promised to lower inflation when he took office almost 11 months ago, but the opposite happened. Today we are dealing with a rise of 114% per year that experts estimate will be close to 150% by the end of the year.
The electoral scenario is so closed and uncertain these days that this candidate, the Peronist Sergio Massa, can win, in the same way that he could even come out third in the October polls, which would be an unprecedented slap for Peronism. The libertarian Javier Milei could leave him out, although his candidacy also entails a gigantic unknown. Because all of his candidates lost –and by beating- in each provincial election that has been held up to now. Example? Yesterday, in the contest that defined the next governor of Córdoba, the second most populous province in Argentina, his “chicken” came fourth, with just 2.49% of the votes.
Milei is not shy, however, and she is right when she says she can win, recalling the tortuous path that led Mauricio Macri to the Casa Rosada eight years ago. “In 2015 Macri lost 11 previous elections in the provinces and was President.” It is true, although it could also happen that he finished third in October and, therefore, out of the second round.
And what about Together for Change, the alliance founded by Mauricio Macri? He has been excited for a long year about recovering the power that he lost in 2019. He has candidates, he has structure, he has money and he intends to vote. But he bleeds to death in internal fights, mostly -although not only- between Horacio Rodríguez Larreta and Patricia Bullrich, who will define who will win the candidacy in the primary elections in August.
Together for Change thus became the only one of the three spaces with real aspirations to reach the Casa Rosada that will use the primaries for what they were created for: settle the internal bids for power. That can empower whoever wins… or sink their dreams. And it could happen that whoever wins the primaries goes from aspiring champion to “little onion”, as we say in Argentina, being left out of the ballot.
But the Argentine anomalies do not end there. First, because all the polls expose the citizen’s weariness with the current situation and with the politicians, which translates into record levels of electoral abstention and blank votes since the return of democracy in 1983. But over and over and over again, the Provincial elections gave the victory to the ruling parties. Even in Córdoba, where former President Mauricio Macri has his greatest stronghold, the ruling Peronism won.
In this context, the only apparent consensus is that the candidate who is not a Kirchnerist will win. But this data omits one last paradox: the current vice president and power factotum, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, is not competing in this contest, nor did she anoint a dolphin, but she can come out on top.
How is it possible? If Massa and the Peronists who promote her candidacy lose, she will retain control within Peronism, while she concentrates her energies on retaining her decisive enclave: the province of Buenos Aires. She is to resist or to dream of returning to the Casa Rosada in 2027. As Andrés Malamud, one of the most lucid political analysts, summarized, “Cristina wins, there is no other interpretation.”
Argentina is a peculiar country, indeed, where even the law of gravity can be reversed at any time.
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