Argentinian economist and self-defined libertarian celebrating his victory in the primary elections (PASO) on Sunday, August 1, 2023. Photo: X/@jmilei.
By Aram Aharonian – Aug 14, 2023
Argentinians never cease to surprise: on a wintry but sunny Sunday, they put the recycled bipartisanship in intensive care in the Primary, Open, Simultaneous, and Mandatory (PASO) elections when the ultra-right-wing Javier Milei, until two years ago a TV panelist, became the chosen character to reset the system. The outsider won and all the rest lost.
A strange silence of the population gained the attention of the pollsters. However, on Sunday night, the silence gave way to stupefaction with the real electoral hecatomb that was the surprising performance of the “libertarian” Javier Milei and his La Libertad Avanza, which many label as an “aberration” to social justice.
Evidently, two months away from general elections, many things can happen, including that voters realize the risks represented by Milei and Patricia Bullrich, with their fascist threats.
With a 69% turnout, the majority votes of those who dared to vote in the midst of apathy and indifference were distributed in thirds—as many predicted—with the triumph of Javier Milei’s La Libertad Avanza, with 30%. No poll had previously given him such a high percentage. The libertarian took seven million votes.
The popular verdict was convincing: it expressed discontent, anger, lack of belonging, and new generations with unprecedented demands. Respect and tolerance do not imply an automatic alignment with the first minority, not even with the overwhelming 58% that Milei and Bullrich accumulated, in separate forces, pointed out [journalist] Mario Wainfeld.
The electorate’s shift to the right, of the planet, and the polarization that empowers the right are facts. None of this entails a sort of mathematical opportunism to embrace the flags of the adversaries. Bullrich’s program is unfeasible in Argentina without repression. Milei’s program adds the unfeasibility of its emblematic measures: dollarization, sale of organs, and vouchers for education. The institutional weakness he would have is added.
The purpose of the PASO mandatory primaries was to determine who will be the candidates of the different parties in the elections of Sunday, October 22, and to find out whether the far-right phenomenon had taken root in a country which, until now, had moved in democracy between liberal-conservatism and the centrist amalgam (sometimes right-wing, sometimes progressive and even revolutionary) that is Peronism or Justicialism.
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For Peronism, it is a historical humiliation to go from being the armored majority of the country to the third of a country of thirds. Undoubtedly, the lousy government of Alberto Fernández ended up “committing suicide” to the party of Perón and Evita. But if we put a magnifying glass on what happened, the election results for the neoliberal coalition is as catastrophic as that of Peronism, taking into account that only two years ago the polls showed that they had a guaranteed next government, with 40% of the preferences. The sad spectacle of a stark internal campaign took its toll on them.
In view of the dismal electoral performance of the ruling party, some debates are still pending, such as whether the decision of Axel Kiciloff—who won again in the province of Buenos Aires—was a wise one, or whether, instead of counting on retaining this crucial district, he should have invested his political capital in running as a presidential candidate.
It seems logical, in view of the fait accompli, to wonder if it will be profitable in the national elections to count on the Buenos Aires result to produce the candidacy of a minister of economy [Sergio Massa] who does not give a damn about taming inflation, protected by a president—Alberto Fernandez—who is considered the “assassin” of Peronism.
Both Milei and his party came first, winning in several provinces, leaving behind the two coalitions that won the last three elections. None of them reached 30% nationally. The neoliberals of JxC [Together for Change] were barely one point above a government which shows as a letter of introduction its achievement of more than 120% inflation this year.
When the differences between projections and reality are as extreme as in this case, the question arises as to whether they are simple sampling errors or malpractice induced by candidates who pay for the polls and consulting firms that agree to put their stamp on rigged results tailored to the client’s needs. None of the 13 polls gave Milei the victory and 12 gave him third place, recalled Perfil magazine.
There is an significant portion of society for whom this man’s extravagance, his verbal and gestural violence, and his anti-political discourse fits right in with his desire to punish the “caste,” a phenomenon similar to what happened with Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Donald Trump in the United States: leaders punished by politically correct thinking but adept at appealing to the weariness of certain sectors, including people from different socioeconomic strata, the magazine added.
A proponent of the sale and purchase of organs, the free use of firearms, the privatization of education, and the closing of the Central Bank, after learning of his triumph, Milei thanked his dead dog after a journalistic book revealed that he maintains a fluid dialogue with his deceased English mastiff through a medium as well as receiving advice from dead economists through his other (living) dogs.
Most voters do not know, nor are they interested in knowing, what the candidate says he thinks or will do. What they are interested in is that figure on television who shouts, shouts and insults, and conveys sensations close to what a good part of the population feels.
Situation board
The murder of an 11-year-old girl in Lanús (Buenos Aires metropolitan area) and the suspension of the electoral campaign events and closings are a huge and symbolic proof that insecurity is part of the painful reality, but the parties give the impression that they have nothing to say or do in the face of this collective drama.
Last Thursday, in a square adjacent to the Buenos Aires Obelisk, some activists were discussing the uselessness of voting when the city police intervened. Several were arrested and thrown to the ground, face down. Knees of the police squeezed the neck of Facundo Molares, a left-wing activist, causing his death, just like what happened to the Afro-American George Floyd, in Minnesota, in May 2020. But that policeman was convicted of murder.
It must be taken into account that the election of Sunday 13 was an electoral call, in the midst of a deep economic-social crisis, in a country immersed in a more than critical situation. The permanent debt maturities are a real sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of all Argentinians.
Inflation, which far exceeds 100% per year, is a pain that the vast majority must endure on a daily basis. Poverty spreads throughout the country: it closed the year 2022 with 39.2%, which reveals that 11,465,599 people suffer from it, according to official figures, although other measurements place it above 40%.
Even more serious is the fact that one out of every five white-collar workers receives income below the poverty line. The detail provided by a UNICEF report indicating that by the end of 2022, two out of every three children in Argentina (66%) will be part of households on poverty income is equally serious.
This year, due to recession, a drop of 2.5% is expected for the year 2022. The fact is that during the time the economy was growing, poverty and inequality also grew. There was income redistribution, but it was in favor of the powerful. By the way, there are not many precedents of elections carried out in similar frameworks. And it is striking that the top presidential candidate of the ruling party is the minister of economy and the person responsible for these policies.
How to add votes?
Now, Bullrich and the ruling party’s Sergio Massa face different challenges. For Peronism, it is to mobilize more voters and to scratch votes in the territories with activists and local leaders. And, surely, to propose itself as an alternative to two right-wing economic and cultural rivals. At first sight, Milei subtracted votes from JxC, but the total votes of Peronism was one of the lowest since the democratic recovery.
The dilemma facing Patricia Bullrich, the JxC candidate, is from where else can she add votes, because the bold ones who voted for Milei and La Libertad Avanza will hardly vote for her when she can win her own party. Or that a Peronist disenchanted with Sergio Massa makes a suicidal leap. Bullrich has the task of adding up. The problem is how.
Former President Mauricio Macri, in his internal struggle to leave Horacio Rodríguez Larreta out, almost killed the coalition he created, and that did so much damage to the country, leaving it on the edge of the precipice of being left out of the national government. But Macri has a good dialogue with Milei and aspires to be the articulator of a new Argentina led by him and “Pato” Bullrich, a controversial and repressive candidate, with experience in Macri’s cabinets, who defeated the head of government of the capital city, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, and will represent the traditional right wing.
After the PASO, Milei became the main favorite with 30.06% of the votes. The primaries, in which voting is mandatory, are also free and a testing ground with respect to the presidential elections, in which the vote of punishment and anger is more prominent. This will be the hope of the continuity represented by Massa, minister of economy of the current government and candidate of Unión Por La Patria, a party which came in third position and obtained 27.3% of the votes.
It is no longer enough to shout “long live Perón!” We must update our speeches, understand what is happening in a country in crisis, understand the needs of the people, poverty, unemployment, and hunger.
Between now and October, when Argentinians wake up every day, the dinosaurs will still be there, as pointed out in the short story (the shortest in the world, only seven words) by the Guatemalan-Mexican Augusto Monterroso.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/SL
Aram Aharonian
Uruguayan journalist and communicologist. Master in Integration. Founder of Telesur. He presides over the Foundation for Latin American Integration (FILA) and directs the Latin American Center for Strategic Analysis (CLAE, www.estrategia.la).
