Global Courant
The polling stations in Mendoza were closed and the time for provincial elections separate from national elections was over. Alfredo Cornejo aims to become the first former governor of Mendoza to return to provincial government since the return of democracy, securing territorial control of five provinces for the UCR and giving a victory to Patricia Bullrich, who would land in this province at 7 p.m., less than a month before the presidential election.
Omar De Marchi, former ally of Cornejo in Cambia Mendoza and former president of the local PRO, is openly flirting with Javier Milei, who won 45% of the vote in the national PASO in this province. With the candidacy of Omar Parisi, Peronism is about to complete its worst performance.
In the country’s fifth constituency – with just over one and a half million eligible voters – voter turnout was low, lower than expected. It was barely above 70%, whereas in 2019 it was 79%. The apathy contrasted with the proliferation of posters on public streets featuring the five candidates, including Lautaro Jiménez of the Left Front; and Mario Vadillo from the Greens. The official results will be announced from 10 p.m.
Cornejo, who voted very early in the morning in Godoy Cruz, is trying to guarantee a 12-year cycle of hegemony of provincial radicalism in a district without re-election. The former UCR president added the support of Luis Petri, Bullrich’s running mate, who surprised in the Mendoza primary with 16% of the vote.
The two main candidates are happy about receiving these votes. Cornejo, for Petri’s party membership; and De Marchi because he believes that this was an expression of the anti-Cornejista vote. “A year of national turmoil is coming,” the current JxC senator repeated, almost the same words he said to Clarín on Friday.
Cornejo wants to prove himself a guarantor of stability in a change in economic direction that he believes will be difficult but also happy in the long term for his province.
Petri, who would add people from his team to an eventual Cornejo government, ratified the creation of a maximum-security prison that would bear the name Cristina Kirchner, as expected in Bullrich’s latest spot. Cornejo also advocates anti-Kirchnerism to succeed his dolphin Rodolfo Suárez and return to power.
Before his trip, Bullrich confirmed his support for Cornejo in Buenos Aires. “There are people who have convictions and others who are looking for a place without a care in the world. That’s what happened. There was PASO and De Marchi chose a different path. “He chose a more personal goal,” he said in statements to Metro.
Internals radical
The radical intern was also played this Sunday. As Cornejo attempts to re-establish himself as one of the UCR’s top leaders and joins Bullrich, the radical governors of Jujuy and Corrientes, Gerardo Morales and Gustavo Valdés, attended a management event with Sergio Massa and the rest of the provincial leaders north. Martín Lousteau will also not be present in Mendoza, although his Córdoba ally from Evolución, Rodrigo de Loredo, is expected. The elected governors of JxC in San Juan, Marcelo Orrego, were also waiting in the bunker in the provincial capital; San Luis, Claudio Poggi and also Corrientes Valdés, who wants to succeed Morales at the head of the UCR.
For his part, the former mayor of Luján de Cuyo De Marchi insisted with a wink at the leader of La Libertad Avanza, who went from claiming that he does not have his own candidates in the provinces to tweeting polls that favor the current MP as the current MP indicate winner. “We have a great dialogue and a very good personal relationship with Milei. I really appreciate everything he has done to bring important ideas to the table. But La Unión Mendocina is a Mendoza space,” De Marchi said of his brand new electoral front, where the Libertarian Party also coexists.
The opposition front sued the ruling party before the election judge for violating the voting ban. In De Marchi’s entourage, which would be awaiting the results in Guaymallén, the province’s most populous district, they ironically said in the preview that the former leader of the provincial PRO was more “Peronist” than the Peronist candidate himself, Parisi, who he was Mayor of Luján de Cuyo and leader of the Democratic Party until he turned to local Peronism, which dominates La Cámpora at the provincial level.
