Argentina opposition faces fragmentation ahead of runoff
Oct. 24, 2023
The final phase of Argentina’s intense electoral year is in full swing as the runoff candidates angle for the votes of the losing candidates in Sunday’s general election — 8.8 million votes that went conservative Patricia Bullrich, moderate Peronist governor Juan Schiaretti and leftist Myriam Bregman. The conservative Juntos por el Cambio (JxC) coalition’s 23.83% of the vote is particularly tempting, and efforts to woo those voters could further fracture a suddenly creaking alliance. (Reuters, El País, New York Times)
The governing Unión por la Patria (UP) candidate, Economy Minister Sergio Massa, has proposed a national unity government, and has sought appeal to centrist voters with republican ideals, avoiding the discourse and symbols associated with the Kirchner movements. (Infobae, Letra P) In fact, journalist Carlos Pagni notes that the Massa campaign distributed Argentina soccer jerseys and flags at his election night speech, eschewing the flags and shirts of political factions. (La Nación)
Libertarian Javier Milei has shifted his “anti-caste” discourse — a dismissive reference the the entire political establishment — and is instead arguing for an anti-Kirchnerite coalition that includes not only the right-wing Juntos por el Cambio, but could also even make room for the far-left if they are willing to join. (Infobae, La Política Online)
The contortions and efforts to grab new votes are to be expected — though they are considerably more awkward in the case of Milei who has pivoted from his incredibly incendiary discourse in the campaign thus far. Milei’s sudden “loss of anti-system sex appeal could deepen” if former President Mauricio Macri heads his pleas for collaboration, argues Iván Schargrodsky in Cenital.
Bullrich is ideologically closer to Milei, and many of her voters could be expected to support the libertarian in November’s second-round. But an alliance with party leaders, led by former President Mauricio Macri, could alienate the more moderate parties in JxC — the Unión Cívica Radical and Coalición Cívica — who are inclined to avoid taking sides or to support Massa in defense of democratic values. The crushing defeat of the opposition alliance, which earlier this year was considered a sure winner of the presidential election, has heightened tensions with in the coalition, with more moderate leaders uncomfortable with Macri’s embrace of Milei — even before Sunday’s vote.(Infobae, La Política Online, La Política Online, Infobae, La Política Online, Letra P)
Massa’s strategy moving forward is to deflate internal tensions and “place himself in the place of care and protection,” a combination of pro-market and care/protection that can appeal to centrists and Schiaretti voters — no easy task. “He must get more than 14 points and convince that a novelty can be designed, the government of national unity. Peronism opens up to something unknown: the unity of multiparty leadership and the suspension of its populist agonality,” writes Esteban de Gori in Anfibia.
More Argentina
“Massa's triumph surprised those who like to be surprised,” writes Ignacio Fidanza in La Política Online. “It is the risk of analyzing Argentine politics from anti-Peronism. In fact, Peronism is good for almost anything, except for underestimating it.”
Indeed, Sunday’s election usher’s in a new era of analyzing Peronism’s latest evolution.
Massa’s victory is far from assured, in particular because of the enormity of the country’s economic woes. “But there’s largely a consensus that people don’t want to abandon the basic tenets of democracy and respect for the rule of law, democratic values and human rights,” writes María Esperanza Casullo in Americas Quarterly. In a way, the election “was a godsend for Massa: It turned into a plebiscite around democratic values, and not the economic performance of the government.”
“Milei was underestimated before Argentina’s primaries, oversold before the first round and is now being underestimated yet again,” writes the Wilson Center’s Benjamin Gedan in Latin America Advisor. “All along, he has been a flawed candidate…Nevertheless, Milei is still the front-runner.”
Buenos Aires governor Axel Kicillof, who was elected by a landslide on Sunday, played a key role in Massa’s surprisingly strong first place finish, and has emerged as the face of a younger Peronism (though he’s 52). He has called for renewal within the party ranks, reports the Guardian.
Brazilian far-right politician Eduardo Bolsonaro said Milei is the hope for change in Argentina. (Infobae)
Migration
The U.S. Biden administration’s exhortations for would-be migrants to apply for legal entry to the U.S have a central contradiction : “Only a fraction of the applicants have been accepted, while countless others — as many as 1.5 million or more, by several estimates — are waiting for an answer outside the United States in a kind of migration purgatory, trying to weather the upheaval, violence and hardship that makes them so anxious to flee,” reports the New York Times.
Haiti
Kenya’s highest court extended an order blocking the deployment of a Kenya-led multinational security mission to aid Haiti’s police battle armed gangs in order to hear a challenge that argues Kenya’s offer to help Haiti conflicts with the country’s constitution, reports the Miami Herald.
Members of the U.N. Security Council said yesterday that Haiti couldn’t afford to wait for help and that deployment needs to happen sooner rather than later. Children were increasingly being killed or injured in the crossfire, and one in four schools has been closed since last year, the Security Council was told, yesterday, reports the Miami Herald.
Guatemala
Guatemala’s “Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) is in a jam — one that could determine whether Attorney General Consuelo Porras is successful in barring the January 14 swearing-in of President-Elect Bernardo Arévalo,” reports El Faro English.
Mexico
An armed group ambushed and killed thirteen law enforcement officers in Acapulco yesterday, adding to a soaring number of deadly attacks against the police in the region, reports the New York Times. The brazen attacks are “a sign of how criminal gangs are openly confronting authorities in a state known for heroin poppy production,” reports the Washington Post.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has sought to cement his popularity in his last year of government using “social programs for clientelist purposes with great effectiveness, along with an appealing (albeit polarizing) narrative and strong disenchantment with the traditional political class,” argues Vanessa Rubio in Americas Quarterly.
Histories
“In recent years Mexico has mounted an ambitious series of investigations and restitution efforts to reclaim the nation’s stolen cultural heritage, joining with other countries to correct decades of theft and colonial plundering,” reports the New York Times.