Verticalism, a trademark of Peronism, did not work this year when it came to deciding the candidate for president in the October elections in Argentina: Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who four years ago nominated Alberto Fernández through a video and without any answer as candidate for the Casa Rosada, this time he did not have enough power to avoid internal elections, something practically unprecedented in the movement founded by Juan Perón.
Added to this novelty is another, that of the name change of the political coalition led by Peronism, which will no longer be Frente de Todos, but Unión por la Patria.
“We unite to defend the Homeland,” said the new coalition in an extensive manifesto on social networks. “We have a unique opportunity to put Argentina on a path of economic growth with social inclusion,” added the political group that today governs a country with 115% annual inflation in the last year and more than 40% poverty.
The name change seeks to hide the failure of a management that ends with the three leaders of the Frente de Todos deeply at odds. Fernández de Kirchner openly criticizes President Fernández, with whom there is no dialogue, while Sergio Massa, the current Minister of Economy, maintains a tense relationship with the head of state and threatens, through members of his political group, by resigning from office.
The last and only time that Peronism, founded by a military man, decided on its presidential candidacy in an internal democratic election was in 1988, when Carlos Menem surprisingly defeated Antonio Cafiero. Internal democracy has not been customary in the Justicialista Party (PJ), which claims to be a movement, and not a party.
Massa, who has been in power for ten months now, has not managed to lower inflation, quite the contrary. Despite the meager results of his administration, the leader of the so-called Frente Renovador, an anti-Kirchnerist split of Peronism now once again allied with Kirchnerism, acts at times as a parallel president and aspires to be the ruling party’s candidate in the October elections.
Fernández, an extremely weakened head of state, managed despite this to block Massa’s aspirations and promote another candidate, Daniel Scioli, current ambassador to Brazil and defeated by Mauricio Macri in the 2015 ballotage.
Fernández de Kirchner has less power in Peronism than four years ago, but he is still in a position to influence decisively, for which he also uses his son, Máximo, president of the PJ of the province of Buenos Aires.
Fernández de Kirchner’s big problem today is that he cannot find a candidate: Massa raises doubts due to his poor economic management and the high negative image he has in the polls, in which the percentage of Eduardo De Pedro’s intention to vote does not quite take off , current Minister of the Interior and very close to the current Vice President.
Peronism, the dominant political force in the last eight decades in Argentina, not only does not find a candidate -something that must be legally defined before June 24-, but there are polls that place it third and out of the first round of the presidential elections. , which will be held on October 22. A possible ballotage will be held on November 19, three weeks before the inauguration of the new president, on December 10.
In the midst of these tensions, the son of the former president, Máximo, signed a document in which the intervention of the head of state in the selection process of the candidate for president is criticized without regard: “I wish they had put the same dedication and effort to recover the purchasing power of citizens”.
The internal election process, known as Open, Simultaneous and Mandatory Primaries (PASO), will be held on August 13 and will involve all political parties, as well as the opposition coalition Juntos por el Cambio (JxC), which has five pre-candidates. for president.
Together for Change is a coalition that integrates the centennial Radical Civic Union (UCR), a party with social democratic roots, and the PRO, Macri’s conservative-liberal force, in addition to other groups. Unlike Peronism, it is a coalition used to internal elections, which this year center on a fierce dispute between Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, head of government (mayor) of Buenos Aires, and former Defense Minister Patricia Bullrich.
Peronism will also decide internally the candidacy for the strategic governorship of the province of Buenos Aires, the most powerful in the country.
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