Green scarves against blue scarves. A little over a year after the failure of the legalization of abortion in the Senate, the debate on abortion is far from over in Argentina. The campaign for the presidential election, which ends Sunday, October 27, gave him a new echo. The outgoing president, Mauricio Macri, hoping to rally conservative voters in his sky blue color, said he was opposed. Alberto Fernandez, heir to Peronism, said he was in favor of legalization in the long term, hoping to capitalize on the mobilization of women, whose green scarf is the emblem.
>> Argentina: the crisis in the background of the presidential election
Authorized only in cases of rape and danger to the health of the mother, abortion has regularly invited in meetings and during televised debates to become one of the themes of the campaign. An unprecedented fact in the history of the Argentine democracy where a large study dating from 2005 estimated between 370,000 and 520,000 the number of legal and illegal abortions taking place each year in this country of 44.27 million inhabitants.
"Abortion was not at the center of the campaign but it flew over it permanently," confirms Darío Rodríguez, lecturer at the Paris-Sorbonne University and specialist in Argentina, interviewed by France 24.
Mauricio Macri in bad shape
With a balance sheet that shows a recession of 2.5% in 2018, an inflation of 53.5% in September 2019 and an unemployment rate of 10.6%, Mauricio Macri is in serious trouble as the ballot approaches. The results of the primaries attest to this. The Argentinean political system has the particularity of calling the voters to the polls a few months before the general elections for "open, compulsory and simultaneous" primaries of each party. In theory, they allow voters to choose their preferred candidates within each coalition but those of 11 August were different since each coalition had only one ticket. And the outgoing president was largely defeated by Alberto Fernandez.
Mauricio Macri embarked on a reconquest operation on 27 October. To broaden his base, he turned to the conservative electorate and the evangelists whose influence is growing in this Latin American country. This branch of Christianity, which appeared in the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century, emphasizes the importance of religion in everyday choices and has a great capacity for mobilization through radio and television in Argentina, and thanks to their presence in all provinces. The mobilisations against a bill to legalize abortion in 2018, approved by the Chamber of Deputies, but rejected by the Senate, also gave them great visibility.
"This reorientation [of Mauricio Macri] is a question of strategy, it wants to broaden its base of support by reaffirming its support among the traditional and conservative sectors", Darío Rodríguez analysis. "It seeks the polarization of the debate facing Alberto Fernandez."
Mauricio Macri had long been cautious on the issue of abortion. During the 2015 presidential campaign campaign, he promised to open the debate while personally opposing its legalization and leaving it to Congress to decide. A promise he made in 2018.
A rhetorical inflection
But the outgoing president now wants to show off against the Conservatives. He no longer hesitates to adopt the so-called "two lives" theory, that of the mother and that of the child.
"This turnaround is strategic and he does not want to lose his support that is favorable to him," Rodriguez said.
During his big meeting on Saturday 19 October, the message "Yes to life" appeared on the windows of a building overlooking the meeting scene, reports a report from La Croix. On his way to Rosario airport, the president even showed up with an evangelical pastor who blessed him. Listening to him, God "placed" the head of state at Casa Rosada (the seat of the presidency) and "no one can reach it".
Pastor Evangelista bendice to Macri 😍😍 !! Vamos that s'puede 💪💪
🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷 pic.twitter.com/w6b5TEFgHg
Opposite, the opposition has seized the subject of abortion. During a debate between the six candidates, the candidate of the Front of the United Left, Nicolas del Caño, said, bluntly, "100% favorable" to legalization. The favorite Alberto Fernandez took more tweezers by asserting his support for decriminalization to prevent women and doctors from being worried by justice and that we should "strive towards legalization". Its vice-president, Cristina Kirchner voted in 2018, as a senator, in favor of legalization, while during her time as head of the country, from 2007 to 2015, she refused to open the debate.