3 causes of the defeat of Peronism in the legislative elections and what consequences it has for the future of the Alberto Fernández government

The ruling coalition, Frente de Todos (FTD), which groups together different sides of Peronism, suffered a massive defeat in Sunday’s legislative elections at the hands of the center-right opposition, which it removed from power in 2019.

President Alberto Fernández’s alliance was nine points behind the main opposition coalition, Juntos por el Cambio, in the election to renew half of the Chamber of Deputies.

And in the election to replace a third of the senators, the FDT was 20 points behind of the force that between 2015 and 2019 brought Mauricio Macri to the presidency.

With these results, Peronism will lose its control of the Senate in December, where it had its own quorum since the return to democracy in 1983.

Meanwhile, he shortened his majority in Deputies, where he will now have two more legislators than Juntos.

This will force the government to have to negotiate with the opposition in order to govern.

Although the ruling party made a better choice this time than in the primaries of last September, when the magnitude of the defeat caused a public confrontation between Fernández and his powerful vice president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the ruling coalition lost much of the support that led him to the power in 2019 with 48% of the votes.

At BBC Mundo we explain the three main reasons behind this defeat.

1. The economy

Without a doubt, the greatest discomfort of Argentine voters is with the state of the economy.

The country came from two years of recession and inflation that exceeded 50% when Fernández took office two years ago.

It also had a heavy public debt, thanks to the agreement signed by Macri in 2018 with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which converted the South American country in the largest debtor of that body.

As if that scenario wasn’t complicated enough, the coronavirus pandemic arrived in March 2020.

Without access to credit, Fernández, who had been in power for three months, had to appeal to the monetary issue to face the health and economic crisis caused by the virus.

But critics of the government argue that it was its handling of both the economy and the pandemic that further aggravated both crises.

Despite all the problems that the country was dragging on, Fernández decided impose one of the longest quarantines of the world.

The restrictions on movement, the use of public transport and the closure of shops lasted for months.

Even with a record printing of banknotes, state aid was limited and did not reach, especially to the informal sector that represents more than a third of the economy.

The decision to prohibit layoffs – which is still in place – was an extra burden that ended up drowning many companies and businesses.

More than 40,000 SMEs closed their doors, according to the Argentine Confederation of Medium Enterprises (CAME). That’s twice the number that closed during the 2001-2002 crisis.

Argentina suffered an economic contraction of 10% in 2020, one of the worst in the world.

Meanwhile, the Fernández government was slow to reach an agreement with its private creditors, leading the country to its ninth default in May 2020, and only managed to restructure that part of the debt – some US $ 65,000 million – in August of that year. anus.

And with the IMF he has not yet negotiated the payment of the US $ 44,000 million that the country owes him.

“Having come here without an agreement with the Fund is bad practice,” economist Marina Dal Poggetto, executive director of the EcoGo consultancy, told BBC Mundo.

Many economists believe that the lack of an agreement with the country’s main creditor, and a clear economic plan, mistrust in the Argentine economy has increased and in particular in its currency, the peso.

This mistrust has caused the price of the free or market dollar to skyrocket – here known as the “blue dollar” – which today is 100% more expensive than the “official dollar”, whose price and access is controlled by the State.

This has not only made traveling abroad or buying imported products prohibitive for most Argentines. Even more problematic is that it has put more pressure on inflation, the economic problem that most worries people.

With a monthly price rise of 3% or 4% -which exceeds annual inflation in many countries- more and more Argentines are finding it difficult to make ends meet, and between 40% and half of the population today is about below the poverty line, according to official figures.

2. Managing the pandemic

Many Argentines who punished the government with their vote not only foist it poor economic management of the pandemic.

They also blame him for the more than 116,000 deaths from coronavirus that the country had, a figure that, adjusted by population, is similar to the number of victims that Brazil had.

Although many supported the way in which Fernández approached the pandemic when it arrived in the country – his approval levels reached 80% at the end of March 2020 – that number began to drop sharply as the months passed and the restrictions were maintained. .

One of the things that the president is criticized the most, from all socioeconomic sectors, is his decision to have kept the schools closed for about a year and a half.

Argentina was also more de one year without commercial flights, including domestic ones, more than anywhere else.

Also the delay in obtaining vaccines caused a lot of discomfort with the government.

While neighbors such as Uruguay and Chile signed quick agreements to acquire the Pfizer vaccine, the first to be commercialized, Argentina had disagreements with the American pharmaceutical company.

Instead, it based its vaccination strategy on two of the inoculations that had the most supply problems: AstraZeneca and Sputnik V.

This made it take a long time for the country to double vaccinate most of its population.

Two scandals related to the pandemic did nothing to improve the government’s image.

First, the so-called “VIP vaccination”, as the irregular vaccination of personalities close to power became known, which led to the resignation of the Minister of Health.

And then him “Olivos Gate”: the leak of images of the president celebrating his partner’s birthday together with a group of friends at the presidential residence, violating the social restrictions that he himself had imposed.

3. The internal fights

Although the union of Peronism was key to beating Macri in 2019, the short circuits between the different leaders that make up the government coalition – in particular between the president and his vice – have complicated the administration of the government, limiting its popularity.

The political scientist Juan Germano, director of the firm Isonomía Consultores, told BBC Mundo that the Peronist alliance was “very effective from the electoral point of view, but very ineffective for governing.”

For his part, Facundo Nejamkis, director of the consulting firm Opina Argentina, pointed out that “there is a problem of two-sided leadership in the government that I don’t know if any country in the world can tolerate, but Argentina obviously has difficulties with that.”

“Until the Frente de Todos manages to resolve the problem of internal differences, and where the government’s management should go, those differences and tensions are transferred to society as a whole,” he said. (I)