• Latin America: General test for the presidential elections of Argentina
  • Crisis: A historical blackout generates tension and doubts in Argentina

"This election defines the next 30 years of Argentina," says Argentine President Mauricio Macri. But as everything can grow, a chronicler of the TN news channel tells one of the Peronist candidates that the head of state believes that "the next 40 years" are at stake. And the candidate is scared. The anecdote illustrates the degree of tension and importance with which the primary elections in the country were lived this Sunday, elections that many define as "a macro-survey that decides nothing" , but which are much more than that. Elections, too, that confirm the atavistic taste of Argentines to stand before chasms.

Formally, the Open, Simultaneous and Compulsory Primary (STEP), whose results were well known in the early hours of Spain, are an instance to resolve internal disputes in the parties and "clean" the grid of candidates for the elections of October 27 . They will only reach those presidential candidates who have exceeded the 1.5% threshold. It is estimated that of the ten presidential formulas presented yesterday will not survive more than five.

The STEP, however, acquired an unusual level of political importance for this year's vote. With a paradox worth remembering; A few months ago, the Macri government hinted that he wanted to cancel them because they made no sense and cost the public treasury $ 200 million. Then, with the play of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who reserved the candidacy for the vice presidency and elected Alberto Fernández as candidate for president, the Macri coalition, Together for Change, understood that the deadlines had accelerated, and that the STEP would work this time as a virtual first round.

Thus, both Peronism, centered on the Front of All, as well as the social-liberalism of Macri and its allies of the Radical Civic Union (UCR), put all the meat in the barbecue by advancing plans and strategies that were intended for October . The discursive axis of the government goes through a dichotomy that goes far beyond such a party or another: it is chosen between the republic and populism, between a modern country and integrated to the world or one sliding towards Chavism. If the government were right, then Argentina would be facing the abyss once again, nothing that sounds foreign to a country that is experiencing an explosive economic crisis every ten years.

Joaquín Morales Solá, one of the references of the political journalism of the country, titled his column before the elections with a "The great things that are put into play" and left an openwork reflection: "It is possible to glimpse for the first time the old dream of political scientists and sociologists: the existence in Argentina of two great ideological poles , one of the center-right and the other of the center-left.They could not exist before because Peronists and radicals were in themselves alliances that covered the entire ideological arc. Peronism and radicalism are not what they were, and they may never be again. The Justicialist Party is now a minor partner of Christianity and radicalism is a middle ally of macrism. Nor is it certain that these two blocks remain in time. nor that they properly express the ideas of the right and the left . Is it Macri of the right? Is it Cristina of the left? A genuine representative of the right does not expand social spending as Macri did. A leader of the left does not become rich, or should not, while performing tasks as a public official. "

And what will happen after the STEP? It will be the confirmation of polarization, with third options very distant from the two major political groups and an intensification of the strategy of the abyss, which on the side of Kirchnerism is synthesized in a simple way: Macri is destroying the social and productive fabric of the country; we must stop it, because otherwise Argentina will be unrecoverable.

That in that context the mention of electoral fraud has arisen - Fernández himself insinuated it - did nothing but add tension to an election day that was lived in full sun in much of the country. Since democracy returned to the country in 1983, fraud was never an issue. Somehow, the country had learned the lesson of the 1930s, when "patriotic fraud" was appealed and elections were rudely manipulated. The closest to what is happening today is the complaint by Elisa Carrió, today the president's ally, who every time she is asked says that she was robbed of seven points in the presidential election she lost in 2007 with Cristina Kirchner. On the long election night, a desire brought many closer: that reality made insinuations of fraud insubstantial. Otherwise, Argentina would be facing an abyss.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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  • Mauricio Macri
  • Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
  • Argentina Elections

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