2023-08-11 08:32:05
About 1,500 people live in Tecka. This small Patagonian town is located 1,859 kilometers south of the city of Buenos Aires, on the side of a road. The wind takes everything. Only cars go by and they hardly ever stop. Tecka has acquired an ephemeral notoriety in the prelude to some primary elections that can define the course of Argentina: its mayor was defeated by a blank vote (and 54%) and almost 10 points of difference. He won the contest because he was the only candidate. The episode has drawn attention in the capital. Many analysts wonder if it was just an isolated case or the symptom of a larger problem, that of all a disenchanted country, which will be unveiled on Sunday when the polls open. The Simultaneous and Compulsory Open Primary (PASO) they are an x-ray of the national mood. A fairly close anticipation of the behavior of Argentines in the presidential elections scheduled for October in which the peronism, the ruling party, is at a disadvantage compared to the right and the extreme right threatens to become more than just a statistic. The polls give their candidate, the economist Javier Milei, up to 20% of the preferences.
He ghost of the abstention it flies over the PASO and mixes with the so-called “voto rant” (protest), only for the purpose of preventing the candidate who can provoke the most aversion from winning. Sergio Massa, Minister of Economy and firefighter without water in the middle of the inflationary fire, tries to convince the historic Peronist electorate that the worst is over and the horizon only offers good news. The mayor of the capital Horacio Rodriguez Larreta, and former Security Minister Patricia Bullrich will define who is the standard bearer of the traditional conservative space led by the tycoon Mauricio Macri. Sparks have flown between them. Milei, meanwhile, seeks to fish in a troubled river and bellows “that they all go away”, as an imitation of the great crisis of 2001. In the last hours, the punitive discourse has gained ground, especially among opponents, after the atrocious murder of an 11 year old girl in the impoverished suburbs of Buenos Aires, and, furthermore, in defense of the capital’s police, indicated as responsible for the death of a protester. The promise of a tougher hand than the current one has been installed at the end of the campaign as the most effective promise.
Incognitos
But not even the boasts of bolsonarism of several candidates, which also include the immediate application of the law of retaliation, an eye for an eye, offers certainty about how the electorate will behave on August 13, and much less those who will vote for the first time after having turned 17 . This is 3% of the almost 34.5 million people qualified to participate in the primaries. The participants of the PASO have come to TikTok and, with the tools and rhetoric of that social network, as if they were real users, they try to convince young people.
Irreverence or jokes, fake sympathy or acting seriousness on the networks are not, at this point, a guarantee of enthusiasm in a country with a poverty close to 40% and a cost of living increase of more than 100% in the last 12 months. The surveys, if they are correct, detect a level of undecided up to 8%.
“The election campaign current is distinguished by its flatness“, said the pollster Hugo Haime. “What the electorate does not find are leaders with a strategic vision of the country in which to reflect themselves.” “Most of the candidates do not generate empathy nor falling in love,” says the consultant Analía del Franco. Added to this completely dispassionate segment of society is the one that has decided to imitate their compatriots from the remote town of Tecka and flood the polls with white. And, furthermore, they are those who, under the weight of the burdens of the present, do not even want to “punish” a candidate and will stay at home. The greater the abstention, the analysts point out, the fewer the opportunities for Peronism. In the 2019 PASO, 74.9% of the electoral roll voted. The possibility of a brutal descent is not ruled out by anyone. This conjecture is based on what happened in the recent primaries in the province of Santa Fe, the third most important in Argentina, where participation was 60%.
Peronist crossroads
Peronism lost four million votes in the 2021 parliamentary elections. The beating was of such depth that it ruined the aspirations of Alberto Fernandez to be reelected. The president is, by now, a ghostly figure. Since then, the economic situation has worsened in step with the increase in the price of the dollar, the fall of reserves in the Central Bank and the strained negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The threat of collapse is latent and especially damages the hardest hit sectors of society, historical sympathizers of Peronism and those who suffer the most from inflation, urban insecurity and lack of housing.
According to the Center for the Implementation of Public Policies for Equity and Growth (Cippec), one in three households has vulnerable conditions or overcrowding. It lacks drinking water, sewers and 1.3 million homes that are astonishingly precarious. Currently there are 5,697 informal neighborhoods, a universe of shacks. The vast majority have risen in the capital’s periphery. In one of its neighborhoods, an 11-year-old girl lost her life. Two men dragged her across the ground, only to rip her backpack out of her hands before entering the school. “Those streets are nobody’s zones.”said the mother. No one dares to predict whether electoral behavior will change under the effects of such a collective stupor.
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