Argentina is approaching elections that could be a setback for the government

Argentina is preparing for a very important legislative election for the projects of the current government of President Alberto Fernández.

In the midst of the serious economic crisis caused by the pandemic, the population is divided into what they call “the crack”, between those who support the president and Peronism and those who are against it. Two opposing economic models, which do not find a point in common.

In this context, in the last primary, open, simultaneous and compulsory elections (PASO) there was a result that gave greater support to the opposition and put in check the level of maneuvering of the executive in Congress.

According to the Argentine analyst Rosendo Fraga, “since 1946, which was the first election in which Peronism competed, it never had such an important defeat (as in the PASO this year), obtaining, in September 2021, 30% compared to the opposition that obtained 40%. The consequence will be that internal conflicts within the ruling party and in particular between the president and vice president Cristina Kirchner will intensify ”.

While for the analyst Artemio López, the country’s situation is very complicated and according to statistics, 40.6% of the population is in poverty levels and more than 10% in extreme poverty, a level of unemployment around the 10 points and people who are no longer looking because they have little hope of getting it.

For him, this is due to the decisions made during the government of Mauricio Macri (2015-2019) and the pandemic, and the country is experiencing a high level of redistributive inequality, complicated by the lack of job creation.

In this topic Fraga comments that for the population the economic crisis is more the responsibility of the rulers than of the pandemic. In other words, Macri and Fernández are held responsible. As time passes, the responsibility assigned to the latter increases and the responsibility assigned to the former decreases.

That is why the punishment in the PASO, but López believes that everything can still happen in the official election of November 14, since many people who support the ruling party did not leave out of discontent, something that can be measured by seeing that Together for Change (opposition ) did not obtain more votes than in 2019, but the Frente de Todos (ruling party) did not attend.

At this point, Fraga says that getting more people to vote is not a problem of authority, but rather it is done with a clientelist mechanism. The ruling party may have some success in getting people to vote – in Argentina compulsory voting does not have effective sanctions.

López also sees a problem with the debt of 44,000 million dollars that Argentina has with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), signed in the Macri government, which he sees as unpayable for the country for the next 10 years.

At this point, President Fernández has commented that he is trying to renegotiate. In addition to stating that the high inflation registered in the South American country has nothing to do with monetary policy problems but rather with the “speculation” of “rogue” businessmen, particularly in the food sector. However, his critics blame him for a very poor handling of the situation and the pandemic for the repeated confinements and restrictions, according to EFE.

According to the Government, in the first fortnight of October there was an acceleration in the prices of food and cleaning and personal hygiene products, with increases of between 8% and 25%.

“The post-electoral scenario will be very difficult due to very acute social and economic problems converging with political conflicts within the ruling party, and in some way, also in the opposition,” says Fraga.

Something similar thinks López, who sees the entire political class in a situation of great weakness and with “a lot of distancing from society from the entire leadership.”

In this context, the so-called libertarians have also highlighted, among which Javier Milei stands out, as a third way, but experts see it as something temporary and would obtain 2% and 3% of votes. (I)