2023-10-21 14:44:15
Before going to work, Emmanuel Zerbos Argentio went to one of the supermarkets in his De Flórez neighborhood, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and stocked up on what he could. He bought care and litter for his cat La Maga, and basic necessities for him and his wife Carolina Marín.
Like Zerbos, the inhabitants of the Argentine capital woke up early to buy groceries and other items in a Buenos Aires that woke up with a “thin air”, 24 hours before the start of the voting in which the next president of that country will be defined among the candidates. Javier Milei, Sergio Massa and Patricia Bulrrich, the most popular.
From this Friday until next Monday, commerce was paralyzed. Zerbos says that since the afternoon they stopped selling items to Argentines, and if someone was able to agree, for example, to buy oil, he could pay for it next week, and he would have to do so at a higher price.
“On the streets there is a lot of speculation and a lot of concern about what might happen. People are buying things that they don’t even need because they think about what will happen after this Sunday, and they think or believe that everything is going to increase twice as much,” Zerbos told EL COLOMBIANO.
And the economic issue is one of the points that has most strained the upcoming elections in Argentina and has led to speculation. As Zerbos mentions, journalist Javier Drovetto told this newspaper that the climate is tense, but no one dares to predict what may happen at the polls this Sunday.
Drovetto states that the person with the best chance of winning the elections is Milei, a candidate with extreme right-wing ideas that generate a certain enthusiasm in a sector of Argentine society that believes that if he won, there would be real change and that is what the country needs.
“This added to a very pressing economic issue due to the levels of inflation that had not been experienced in Argentina for many years, since 1989. This climate is rarified due to the economic, financial, and inflation, and makes the elections of the Sunday generate many expectations for what may happen on Monday. A victory in the first round for Milei generates a scenario of great uncertainty and we have to see how the markets react because his main proposal is dollarization.
For this reason, Drovetto adds, it is common to see at night how supermarkets and large shopping centers mark up the prices of products “because increases are everyday and in this last week, the Ministry of Economy, (headed by the also candidate Sergio Massa), imposed a series of very strict controls on financial agencies to try to contain the dollar, which last week had exceeded 1,000 pesos.”
People will vote for change
The panorama that the next Argentine president will receive is that of a country with very high levels of inflation that have not been seen since 1989, an increase in the poverty rate of 40%, and an Argentina in debt of 44 million dollars with the Fund International Monetary Fund whose obligations demand a significant reduction in the fiscal deficit.
Days before the presidential election, the exchange market increased its price against the dollar, which reached a value of 1,000 Argentine pesos in the underworld, compared to an official rate that reached 365 pesos per dollar.
For this reason, businesses and the economy have taken a flight in which it is not known what will happen to the basic basket and other consumer items, whose price varies every night, as Drovetto expressed to this newspaper and Valentín reaffirmed. Figuera, a 20-year-old student from the Palermo neighborhood, told the AFP agency.
“This is total uncertainty. You never know if your rent is going to be renewed, how much university tuition is going to increase, or prices at the supermarket,” Figuera said.
These reasons are what have made Milei stand out in the voting intentions. As the Argentine producer, Mariel Torreiro, says, fanaticism is very marked by economic issues and if Milei wins, it is because Argentines voted out of hatred. “People are tired and they think: let everyone leave! That’s why they are going to vote for Milei, because they want something new and they are going to wait and see what happens,” says Torreiro.
Despite the uncertainty, the majority believe that Milei will not be president this Sunday, but if there is a runoff (second round in Colombia), Argentina will have a president who among the people will go between hatred and speculation.
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