Unemployment is at low levels for the South American country: it was 6.2% in the second quarter of 2023. But the gross domestic product (GDP) fell 2.8% between the first and second quarters of this year. Meanwhile, the ruling party lost the governorship of the sixth province so far this year. And UNESCO declared the Museum a World Heritage Site of ESMA Memory.
Between the first and second quarters of 2023, unemployment went from 6.9% to 6.2%, in a context in which – although there is work – income loses purchasing power in the face of inflation. At the same time, the economy is in the process of deceleration: GDP fell 10.9% between the second quarter of this year and the same period in 2022, with a strong impact from the drought that affected the agricultural sector.
After 16 years in power in the northern province of El Chaco, Peronism was defeated at the polls by a candidate from the opposition coalition Together for Change. The ruling party lost in 6 of the 12 provinces in which it sought the re-election of its governor.
The ESMA Memory Site Museum, which was a clandestine detention center during the last military dictatorship, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Alberto Fernández gave his last speech before the United Nations as president of Argentina, while the Justice revoked the dismissals in two cases against Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
Fall in GDP and unemployment
This week the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INDEC) released key data on the Argentine economy.
On the one hand, a drop in unemployment, which went from 6.9% to 6.2% between the first and second quarters of 2023, something that occurred not because occupancy has increased – in fact it fell from 45% to 44 .6% – but because the number of people looking for work decreased. In any case, employment levels continue to be high, in part because, due to the effect of high inflation and the loss of purchasing power, more members of households go out to look for work or those who already have it seek to add activities to generate more income.
He INDEC also reported this week an increase in inequality between the first quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023. Next week the poverty and indigence figures for the first half of 2023 will be known, which are expected to be above the last measurement.
Another data that the INDEC released was the level of activity, which fell for the first time since the end of 2020. Gross domestic product (GDP) fell 2.8% between the first and second quarters of 2023 and 4.9% year-on-year. Sales abroad contracted 10.9% year-on-year, especially due to the effect of the drought, which impacted agricultural production, the country’s main export sector. In general terms, the Agriculture, livestock, hunting and forestry category fell 40.2% year-on-year.
According to data from the Ministry of Economy, the drop in revenue due to the drought, only in export duties that were no longer collected, was more than 1 trillion pesos (0.6% of GDP) between January and August. regarding the 2023 budget projections.
The forecasts predict a 2024 without lack of rain, which would return productive capacity to that sector and could support the economic plans of whoever becomes President in the general elections on October 22 with foreign exchange from exports.
In El Chaco, the ruling party lost the sixth governorship in the year
The northern province of El Chaco had been a bastion of Peronism for 16 years, until last Sunday, when the current governor, Jorge Capitanich, who was seeking reelection, was defeated in the first round by Leandro Zdero, of the opposition coalition Together for Change. .
This year, the national ruling party sought re-election in 12 provinces and lost, including El Chaco, in six. Before, he was defeated in the elections for the governorships of Santa Fe, Chubut, San Luis, San Juan, Santa Cruz; The latter is the province that Néstor Kirchner had governed before becoming President in 2003 and that his sister, Alicia Kirchner, had governed since 2015.
Eight of the country’s 24 provinces will be governed from December by Together for Change, although with an especially strong component of the Radical Civic Union, the oldest party and with the greatest national presence within a coalition that has at its heart of power the PRO, Mauricio Macri’s party, most anchored in the City of Buenos Aires.
The PRO is also the party of Patricia Bullrich, the Together for Change candidate for the Presidency, which seeks to capitalize on the provincial victories, although so far there is nothing to show that what happens at the district level is necessarily replicated in the national elections.
Beyond what happens in the presidential elections, the results of the provincial elections are reconfiguring the political map of Argentina, a federal country, in which governability – at all levels – is given not only by the interaction between the Executive and the Legislative, but also for the dialogue between the provinces and the Nation.
The ESMA Memorial Site Museum is a UNESCO World Heritage Site
On Tuesday, UNESCO declared the ESMA Memorial Site Museum a World Heritage Site. It was within the framework of the 45th session of the World Heritage Committee. The ESMA was, during the last Argentine dictatorship (1976-1983), a clandestine detention center, through which some 5,000 detainees-disappeared passed. In Argentina there are 11 other sites included in the UNESCO World Heritage list.
Alberto Fernández gave his last speech at the UN
In the last stretch of his mandate, President Alberto Fernández, who seems to have handed over the centrality of national management to the Minister of Economy and official candidate Sergio Massa, is concentrating on the international agenda.
This week he gave his last speech at the United Nations General Assembly as head of the Argentine Executive. Among other issues, he pointed out against the International Monetary Fund, to which the country owes billions of dollars: “It is shameful,” he said, “that even today they apply surcharges to many countries that already find it unbearable to carry the backpack. of the external debt”.
He also insisted on Argentine sovereignty over the Malvinas/Falklands Islands, called for the establishment of a fairer international trade system for agricultural products and said that “it is time to promote social justice in the world.” The discussion around social justice, understood as state intervention to guarantee rights, has become a topic of discussion in the Argentine electoral campaign, in which the libertarian candidate Javier Milei has declared himself against that position. It is the local version of a debate that is gaining strength globally.
The Justice revoked dismissals in two cases against Cristina Fernández Kirchner
Last Monday, the Federal Chamber of Criminal Cassation, a prior instance to the Supreme Court, revoked the dismissals of Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in two cases: Hotesur-Los Sauces (alleged money laundering) and Memorandum with Iran (alleged cover-up linked to attack against the AMIA), which opens the way for an oral trial to be carried out in both cases. You can appeal the decision to the Supreme Court. On the other hand, the former president will speak at a presentation of a reissue of a book this Saturday and perhaps she will refer to that decision.
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