Comparisons are odious but the Peronist infighting in Buenos Aires Province taking two blackouts and a 38-hour extension beyond their own deadline of Saturday’s witching hour to patch together their list of candidates evokes the self-destructive Juntos por el Cambio primary of 2023. With at least one difference. During the hapless Alberto Fernández administration, then City Mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta loomed as inexorably Argentina’s next president for many months and even after current Security Minister Patricia Bullrich had started undercutting him chainsaw style, Juntos por el Cambio was “condemned to success” to become Argentina’s next ruling coalition for many months more, even if not to be.
Governor Axel Kicillof’s provincial administration cannot permit itself any such complacency, whether false or otherwise. If infighting could sabotage such a sure bet as Juntos por el Cambio in 2023, what are the chances of Fuerza Patria when the nine Peronist gubernatorial terms in the last 10 have failed to resolve crime problems or the poverty trap while their leaders indulge in the luxury of arguably fiercer schisms?
Now that the candidacies have finally been defined, Kicillof seems to be pinning his hopes on polarising and nationalising the September 7 provincial election against the Javier Milei presidency (a strategy on which Milei seems equally keen), appealing to the 70 percent of Argentines with problems reaching the end of the month. Yet some more recent opinion polls are starting to point to a libertarian triumph in Buenos Aires Province with one even giving Alianza La Libertad Avanza a landslide of 46 percent as against 34 percent for Fuerza Patria, even squeezing a 42-40 percent edge in the Kirchnerite bastion of the third electoral section (the southern and western districts of Greater Buenos Aires). An Independence Day survey has the libertarian alliance with PRO topping Kirchnerism by 39 to 36 percent.
If inner strife tore the centre-right apart in 2023 while eroding the rusty Kirchnerite machine now, is infighting infecting today’s invincibles? From the way presidential chief-of-staff Karina Milei hogged the definition of libertarian candidacies last weekend via the Menem cousins and her local hatchet man Sebastián Pareja to the humiliating exclusion of the once omnipotent spin doctor Santiago Caputo (life begins at 40, they say, but it would seem to end for him once he completed his four decades on July 11), the “iron triangle” of the Milei siblings and Caputo does not even look isosceles. The rivalry between Karina and Caputo is somewhat more complex than the confrontation between Bullrich and Rodríguez Larreta, a classic case of hawk versus dove. Both Milei sidekicks claim to represent purism, Karina from her insistence on unconditional surrender from all allies and Caputo from his retinue of extreme militant trolls, yet neither shuns the caste – Karina from her attachment to the Menem dynasty and opening the door to Peronist opportunists while Caputo calculates that governance for the rest of this presidential term cannot be assured by the hard core of 30 percent voting libertarian in the two 2023 pre-runoff votes and last May’s City elections, looking to provincial governors and the extensive middle ground between Milei and Kirchnerism (no less than 114 of the 257 deputies, for example). The differences between Karina and Caputo are certainly not ideology and do not even seem to be method – hard not to reduce them to sheer personal ambition.
Much as both Kicillof and Milei would like to polarise the race, a large chunk of the electorate remains beyond – the two aforementioned opinion polls show 20-25 percent to prefer other options. Of the other seven fronts, by far the most interesting is Somos Buenos Aires, a defective blend of Radicals, dissident Peronists and third parties with potential to trim votes off both main contenders. The definition of lists last weekend ended up giving the lion’s share of candidacies to the Radicals with Tigre Mayor Julio Zamora almost the only representative of dissident Peronism – this might reprieve Kirchnerism somewhat but Radicals (especially the followers of Senator Martín Lousteau and deputy Facundo Manes predominating among the provincial candidates) tend to be the least inclined towards Milei among the former Juntos por el Cambio partners. The third parties oriented around personalities like Elisa Carrió, Margarita Stolbizer and former Congress Speaker Emilio Monzó whose self-importance often outweighs their electorates were generally short-changed.
This column will not centre its focus on last weekend’s definition of candidacies in Buenos Aires Province, about which there are fuller details on the facing page.
Turning to the national midterms still 13 weekends away, if the libertarians fancy their chances of an upset win in the Kirchnerite stronghold of Buenos Aires in September, an impressive result nationwide in October looks even more probable. More than one opinion poll is showing them with a double-digit lead with over 40 percent as against 28-29 percent for Kirchnerism with a peak of 43 percent. Such percentages are sustainable for as long as macro-economic stability is viable – inflation and the dollar need to be kept under control for the next three months without the cure being worse than the disease in the form of the interest rates needed to keep the peso off the greenback triggering recession while the government also needs to cross its fingers that too much money spent abroad in the Northern Hemisphere summer during our winter vacation does not throw the balance of payments even more out of whack.
How do these percentages translate into seats? J.P. Morgan investment bank have made an interesting simulation showing Milei with 60 of the 257 deputies and only seven of the 72 senators if he cannot break beyond his hard core of 30 percent but with 86 deputies and 21 senators if he approximates 45 percent as in his best opinion polls – the former result would see Kirchnerism plus the left in more or less the same place with 108 deputies and 33 seats while the latter knocks them down to 92 deputies and 25 senators. Simple maths would tell you that the first result would leave the middle ground with 89 deputies and 32 senators and the second 79 deputies and 26 senators. If Milei comes close to 40 percent, as opinion polls are currently indicating, he will have 71 deputies and 13 senators as against 99 deputies and 29 senators for Kirchnerism plus left, leaving the rest 87 deputies and 30 senators.
None of these numbers will give Milei anything like an overall majority in either house, thus making these midterms relative – he will continue to depend on the kindness of strangers.
by Michael Soltys
