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Whatever happens, whomever wins, there is something that the Argentine elections have already confirmed: the destruction of a few chapters of the political science manuals. The electoral process, long, very long, culminates this Sunday (or not) with a first round of the presidential elections that actually looks like the second, because the primary of August 11, those that only had to define candidacies, were confirmed as an artifact of infernal power that left the whole picture upside down: the Peronist Alberto Fernández won with 49%, 16 points more than the 33 of the current president, Mauricio Macri. For 11 weeks, Fernández (in Argentina they call him directly "Alberto") behaved sometimes as president-elect, sometimes as responsible opponent and some more as furious and irresponsible rival to the head of state, who formally had power. Macri, in turn, lived in denial ("the election did not happen," he argued) while he began to be that 'lick duck' that Americans talk about: a lame duck waiting for the arrival of another brimming with confidence and strength .

The Argentine electoral system, strongly presidential, contemplates that the head of state wins the one that surpasses 45% of the votes or the one that has at least 40% and 10 points or more of difference over the second. Fernández is the clear favorite to achieve it.

Macri, who did not dream of a successful government, but to change the cultural and economic matrix of the country, did not achieve one thing or the other, but after 13 days of depression he found himself on Saturday with hundreds of thousands of people in front of the House Pink They had called themselves, excited about a viralized video on WhatsApp that the actor Luis Brandoni had sent from Madrid. "We can be better!" shouted a Macri who apologized for not having been more sensitive to the brutal devaluation crisis that unleashed an economic collapse from 2018 and sank his Government electorally. "Yes, you can!", His supporters replied, and what looked like a funeral with a final station on October 27 was transformed into 30 partisan acts across the country that closed with almost half a million people on the Avenue July 9, the main city.

Fernandez and his supporters followed the 'revival' of Macri's quasi-mystical disdain, first, and with some recognition, then: the rival was doing what he should do. They, on the other hand, had done it long ago.

The Peronist Tandem

It was also Saturday, in this case in May and at 9 in the morning, when a film-cutting video surprised the country and the Government with the changed pace. "I belong to a generation that was not looking for a place in the lists, but a place in history ," Cristina Fernández de Kirchner said in the 13-minute video. "Without Cristina you can not, but with Cristina is not enough," they plotted in Peronism, aware that at least half of the country rejects the figure of the former president. Peronism, an extremely malleable movement that unites the left and the right, digested without problems that Fernandez, former chief of Cabinet (a kind of prime minister) of the Kirchners, but without experience as a candidate, became the leader. And Cristina faced a very low profile campaign seeking not to awaken the anti-Kirchner vote.

Decisive Primary

All this happened in five months: some primary that decided nothing and defined a lot, a president of very bad economic management acclaimed by the masses, a candidate for president who was appointed by the vice finger, which is, in turn, a popular former president upholstered of trials and requests for preventive detention for corruption, and that this year she spent two full months in Cuba seeing her sick daughter. A candidate for vice president of Macri, Miguel Ángel Pichetto, who until the previous day was the Peronist spokesman in the Senate and the greatest defender of the theory that Cristina should not go to jail. And a mega devaluation the day after Fernandez's victory, with the weight losing 23% in a matter of minutes. Inflation and poverty skyrocketed, but the country maintained a striking social calm.

Will there be a second round on November 24 or will everything be defined today? Macri's supporters shout "we turn it around" (the election), while the Peronists look at them with some sneer. Ignacio Zuleta, political analyst of the newspaper 'Clarín', the most widely read in the country, believes that a definition within a month is not at all disposable: "We are going to see an election similar to that of 2015, with a very small difference . " That time, Macri won the second round by 51 against 49% over Peronist Daniel Scioli, just 680,000 votes apart. It does not coincide with Zuleta the American Benjamin Gedan, former senior of Barack Obama and a specialist in Argentina at the Wilson Center, who sees Fernandez with inevitable destiny the Casa Rosada this Sunday: "The forecasts for Macri are apocalyptic . "

Whatever happens, Peronism and anti-Peronism should talk so that the country arrives in the best way to December 10, date of the transfer of command . Several companies advanced the payment of salaries to their employees last Friday, a day on which the ATMs were emptied. Everyone wanted to change as many pesos as possible to dollars. They fear a Monday of devaluation, and that, whether Macri or Fernandez, is the great Argentine disease that the next president must begin to solve: What to do with a country of aspirations and great self-esteem that despises so deeply and consistently its currency?

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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  • Argentina
  • Mauricio Macri
  • Senate
  • Daniel Scioli
  • Cuba
  • Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
  • Argentina Elections

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