Argentina - 2021 Election
On 12 September 2021, Argentina held the Parliamentary Primary Elections (PASO) to define the candidates for the 14 November 2021 elections, in which 127 lawmakers and 24 senators will be elected. Citizens between 18 and 70 years of age and all parties are required to participate in this elections, which will be held amidst a resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to data from the D'Alessio IROL and Berensztein consultant companies, the approval of President Alberto Fernandez’s administration has remained at around 41 percent for the last months, after having reached a 60 percent increase in May 2020. While the pro-government lawmakers will seek to revalidate their majority position in the Senate, the opposition coalition Together for Change (TFC) will try to gain more seats in the Lower House to be better positioned for the 2023 presidential elections.
At a national level, the re-branded opposition, Juntos, is defending 60 seats earned in the 2017 midterm elections in the Chamber of Deputies, up against the ruling Frente de Todos’ 51 seats. In the Senate, the ruling coalition is defending 15 seats against the opposition’s eight.
In this context, the pro-government coalition Front of All (FT) will run for the PASO with unique candidate lists in most districts while the TFC coalition will decide on candidacies among several internal lists in most provinces. In Buenos Aires City, for instance, the opposition parties Radical Civic Union (RCU) and Republican Proposal (PRO) will each have their list of candidates.
Over the past few elections, pollsters have been getting it absolutely wrong, both in Argentina and around the world. Covid and the growth of anti-politics has thrown further obstacles at them, as no- one is really willing to make a call on the pre-election dance that are the PASOs.
Citizens between 18 and 70 years of age and all parties are required to participate in PASO, which this year will be held amidst a resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic. As of Sept. 3, this South American country had reported 5 million coronavirus cases and 112,195 related deaths, 190 of which occurred in the last 24 hours.
The National Electoral Directorate (DINE) set a health protocol that must be respected in 101,457 polling stations. It defines mandatory measures such as the use of masks and alcohol gel, the maintenance of two-meter distance between voters, and the sanitization of surfaces, doorknobs, floors, and bathrooms. If the size of the precincts does not allow the voter to keep a distance of 2 meters from other citizens, the voter must wait outside the precinct. Voters should bring their own pen and should not seal the envelopes where they cast their vote with saliva.
This vote, supposedly an obligatory primary to force all political parties to partake and thus minimise the fragmentation of parties to serve individuals, has the particularity of actually having a very real impact on the election. In 2019, for example, the pre-electoral beating suffered by Mauricio Macri’s ticket at the hands of Alberto Fernández sparked a damaging run on the peso, which rang the death knell for the ruling coalition’s expectations for re-election.
The unexpected result, with Alberto and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner taking nearly 48 percent of the vote compared to the the ticket headed by Macri and running-mate Miguel Ángel Pichetto’s 31.8 percent, led to an aggressive devaluation to the tune of 30 percent, with the peso-dollar exchange rate going from around 46 pesos per greenback to 60. Yet this pernicious situation gave Macri’s team the inspiration to go on a series of massive rallies dubbed the “Yes We Can” campaign, which helped them recover in the real election where they took 41 percent of the vote and consolidated themselves as the true opposition.
The electoral blow left the governing Peronist Judicialist Party stuck between two paths: deepening populist policies to ease conditions for hard-hit Argentines or a more moderate approach to lure back middle-class voters who rallied behind the conservative opposition.
Argentine President Alberto Fernandez reshuffled his Cabinet 17 September 2021, looking to draw a line under a bruising week that saw infighting within the governing Peronist Judicialist Party threaten to derail the government coalition. The tug-of-war between more moderate and other factions within the government, saw new ministers named in the key roles of Cabinet chief, foreign minister and agricultural minister.
Divisive but powerful Vice President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner had lashed out at what she said were errors made by the government, sharpening tensions between the moderate faction around President Fernandez and the former president’s own supporters. The centre-left Fernandez had been fighting against a Cabinet revolt from ministers allied with the hard-left wing of his party since the sharp defeat in a midterm primary election put the government’s grip on Congress at risk.
Argentina's President Alberto Fernandez suffered a severe setback in midterm legislative elections held on 14 Novemver 2021, with his ruling Frente de Todos (Front for Everyone) coalition losing control of the Senate for the first time in almost 40 years. With over 90% of votes counted, the coalition — made up of a collection of Peronist and leftist parties — looked set to drop from 41 to 35 seats in the 72-member Senate. It could also lose its position as the biggest bloc in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Congress.
The triumph by the center-right coalition Juntos por el Cambio (Together for Change) will mean a tough final two years in office for the president. The conservative opposition, which was badly defeated in a presidential election two years ago, won almost all the key races in the legislative ballot, as voters turned away from the government amid widespread discontent over a deepening economic crisis, spiraling inflation and rising poverty.
Losing control of the Senate meant that the president will be forced to negotiate with the opposition every initiative he sends to the legislature, which would make it extremely tough for him to push through any laws for the rest of his term. It will also make it difficult for him to make key appointments, including to the judiciary. "Such a result would almost certainly relegate Alberto Fernandez to 'lame duck' status for the rest of his term,'' Jimena Blanco, director of research and risk analysis for the Americas at the Verisk Maplecroft consultancy, told The Associated Press.
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