Global Courant
They were feverish days to define candidates. A circumstance in which the contrasts between surprise and the foreseeable were evident: the surprise carried out by the tactical arrests of Peronism; the foreseeable of a long competition of candidates, which stood out in Together for Change after the 2021 midterm elections.
It is worth emphasizing how the secret played within Peronism. In a matter of hours, to the bewilderment of many, Peronism may have launched its third transformation since 1983. From the pro-market Menemism and privatizations of the 1990s, Peronism turned in the last two decades towards populism with verbal airs left of the Kirchner couple. And now…?
The appointment of Sergio Massa frayed, but did not completely eliminate, the tradition of the great voter who insists on holding the Vice President. The game was open, there were changes of position, sacrifices of candidates from both sides who had attended the PASO and, without a doubt, resentments, betrayals and wounds that are not easily healed. Together with the Vice President, all the variants of Peronism attended that ceremony: the President, experienced leaders, governors and mayors.
These variants were unified to maintain the most solid link of Peronism in its already long history: the appetite for power. This voracity and the desire to satisfy it by means of a unified formula, however precarious they may be, religates successive transformations. The masks are exchanged quickly; the desire for power that they conceal remains intact.
On the other hand, the decline of the role of great electorate crowns two previous mistakes. He failed CFK in 2015 when Sergio Massa divided the votes that should accumulate in the Scioli-Zannini formula; It also failed in 2019, appointing a vicarious and ineffective President who, at the end of her term, would nevertheless manage to contain the pretense of enthroning the candidate promoted by her and the camporismo.
Do these changes account for a definitive twilight? Not yet. If a defeat occurs and the funds and resources of the Executive Branch are lost, the movement that sowed the country with poor people and overwhelmed income with unstoppable inflation, will seek refuge in the province of Buenos Aires, propping up the re-election of Kicillof, drawing up lists of legislators devotees and, as demonstrated in Jujuy, agitating street violence.
It is clear that this defeat depends on factionalism being contained in the opposition ranks. For this reason, for fear of a factionalist tear, Peronism forged the Massa-Rossi formula, which dampens, although it does not prevent, the probable presence of other Peronisms in Córdoba or linked to some aspect of the social movements.
These dome arrangements do not match the open competition of Together for Change. It is therefore necessary to demonstrate whether in these weeks prior to the PASO, the Larreta-Morales and Bullrich-Petri formulas will be able to transmit to the electorate basic consensus and equally shared programs.
Not to forget, this is an internal election and not a defining election between the ruling party and the opposition. Therefore, it will make a mistake who confuses things and applies confrontational rhetoric, typical of general elections, to the internal level of the primaries. In this way, it would cause the winning formula not to subsequently retain a portion of the votes belonging to those who came second.
This requirement is more notorious because, different from the PASO of 2015 in which there was a predominant candidate, in this year the parity between the two presidential candidates provided by the PRO stands out. It will be necessary to see what attitude Mauricio Macri will adopt, whether it be that of a great voter, frayed by the Peronist side, or that of an arbitrator who, without personal identification, guarantees unity above all.
All of this would be insufficient for the PRO candidates if they did not have the integrating role of other members of Together for Change: the UCR retained both Vice President and Vice Governor candidacies in the province of Buenos Aires, the Civic Coalition and the Republican Peronism supported the The Larreta-Morales binomial and the liberal currents stood in column in both spaces.
The contrast between these two kinds of unity is relevant. That of the ruling party, monolithic and imposed from above through arrangements that now take their toll; that of the competitive opposition generated from below with risks of falling into extreme confrontations.
In any case, there is something else. Certain aspects of Massa’s conduct in the face of Kirchnerism and the message of those in the opposition seeking to broaden their support lead one to wonder if politics is not heading towards more moderate positions. The markets and specialists in the United States have taken note of this fact that seems to widen the place of the center.
These landslides are barely hinted at. For now, as an already established unity candidate, Massa launched the campaign for the presidency without going through the internal one. He does it by supporting the burden of a government disaster that he embodies in his capacity as Minister of Economy of a President with prestige on the ground. The rhetoric to differentiate himself from that burden is his biggest challenge.
In the opposition, the campaign implies another challenge: that of shaping the leadership on a field of coincidences. It is not easy to capture them in a context of citizen fatigue, disbelief and electoral abstention. On that ground, he should carve the character of a rebuilding leadership.
The experience of the democracies that, from the center-right and the center-left, consolidated reconstruction coalitions, teaches us that centrist politics is a genius with two faces: coherence and transparency reflect the best; opportunism and maneuvers to hide corruption and obtain impunity, the worst. You will have to choose between the two.
Natalio R. Botana is a political scientist and historian. Emeritus Professor at Torcuato Di Tella University
