The three main presidential candidates all lean moderate or right
Sunday, August 23, 2015
Source: national electoral office
By Sebastián Lacunza
Editor-in-Chief
Editor-in-Chief
It’s hard times for centre-left voters.
The the three main presidential candidates for the October 25 elections, who total around 90 percent of the vote, have a track record that lean centre-to-right. Beyond that, the only option calling itself “Progressives,” which on paper should have represented a huge opportunity, flunked the August primaries (PASO). It would seem that the name alone does not suffice to attract voters of that persuasion.
Judging by the PASO results, everything suggests that Kirchnerism’s centre-left wing massively supported Daniel Scioli on August 9. As the “candidate of the model,” this core vote trusted in his running-mate Carlos Zannini (who in no way is the Maoist-Stalinist described by some) and the future lawmakers of La Cámpora guaranteeing the main lines of any future Victory Front government. In any case, Scioli’s moderate profile and his origins in the neo-conservative Peronism of the 1990s work against much enthusiasm from the more ideological sectors of Kirchnerism, beyond whatever praise they might lavish in public.
On the other side of the fence, the Progressives ticket nominating the ex-Radical Margarita Stolbizer barely scraped 3.5 percent of the primary vote. Rather than examine their own flaws, the analysis of pro-Progressive intellectuals perceived a mass indifference to Stolbizer’s proposal of “equality and decency,” thus betraying their own disdain for the electorate. It might be more to the point to ask what are the real capacities of the Progressives caucus to guarantee the quest for “equality and decency” proclaimed in their campaign posters.
Always in the order of PASO rankings, Kirchnerite voters not seduced by Scioli and opposition supporters mistrusting the credentials of Stolbizer’s alliance might well have ended up in the Workers’ Leftist Front, which, with a 50 percent increase on the 2011 primaries, achieved the best result in presidential voting in history for a Trotskyist list (3.31 percent).
The decline of the centre-left vote marks a contrast with what the 1999-2002 social débacle promised. That sudden anti-capitalist wave found expression in the early midterm elections of the century and, above all, in the street assemblies and protests. The Argentine electoral jigsaw puzzle thus remained in disarray for some time. In 2003 Néstor and Cristina Kirchner (CFK and NK) turned Carlos Menem’s neo-conservatism on its head to return to a simplified version of the Peronist ideals of the 1970s. Even if the term “leftist” is clearly insufficient to identify Kirchnerism, to the extent that it was revived in their dealings with archaic political structures and trade unions, media groups and business élites, it becomes undeniable that this Santa Cruz Peronist cycle knew how to respond to the crisis at least in part. Their alliance with intellectuals and social organizations, human rights groups and trade unions, which for decades had identified with opposing the Pink House, quite simply reinvented Peronism.
Nevertheless, the word “leftist” rarely entered the rhetoric of NK and CFK. Both preferred terms like “popular governments,” “transformational” and “equality.” If at some point the Kirchnerite bosses abandoned in some cupboard the portrait of the ubiquitous Juan Domingo Perón, that has been ancient history for some time now. Today the governors, mayors and legislators under the broad umbrella of the so-called Justicialist Party form a key base for the Pink House.
Ever since Kirchnerism started life in 2003, they have been accused of being “progressive” imposters. This view, which is most widely echoed in the national capital, feeds on numerous cases of corruption and policy contradictions like the support until a couple of months ago for the former Army Chief-of-Staff General César Milani, charged in the case of a missing conscript in La Rioja in 1976.
Even taking a broad view of those who represent the non-Kirchnerite centre-left, it is evident that this political sector has followed an erratic course both rhetorically and strategically.
Lawmaker Elisa Carrió started out on the left before turning religious and ending up pushing the presidential candidacy of Mauricio Macri. Already stripped of her inhibitions, Carrió makes no attempt to hide her conservative agenda.
For their part, the leaders of the Radical UCR — which underwent a social democratic phase under Raúl Alfonsín (1983-1989) — have been highly active in hurling accusations of a two-faced Kirchnerism. Since the ashes of 2002, the Radicals have experienced everything. Part of the party went Kirchnerite while Alfonsín worked on a moderate opposition during the last years of his life. In 2007, the Radicals ran a centrist Peronist (Roberto Lavagna) as their candidate and two years later tried to purge all traces of Peronism. Re-unified, the UCR went chasing the campaign funds of a rightwing businessman and politician in 2011. And so on until Ernesto Sanz, their failed presidential hopeful, succeeded in imposing his preference for Macri. Those who accuse Sanz of “betraying” party principles would have no answer if asked what they had been doing last summer.
Tucumán votes today and the panorama there is a perfect example of the reigning confusion. The classic supply of Tucumán Peronism — a kind of popular conservatism — is opposed by a broad alliance including the UCR, Macri’s PRO, Sergio Massa’s Renewal Front and dissidents from the party founded by the military repressor Antonio Domingo Bussi. Stolbizer, the centre-left candidate, backs this coalition which has nothing to do with what she proclaims nationwide.
The Bolivian Vice-President Álvaro García Linera analyses that in Latin America “the press has passed from an ambiguous relationship with politics to playing the role of the organizer and agitator of the opposition.” In his view this has been functional to the continuity of left wing and populist governments since on voting day the media heading the opposition discourse are prevented from setting their own seal on the electoral contest. Perhaps the scenario as from December will make it easier for those who believe that political proposals require perseverance, ideological limits and neighbourhood activism, apart from television studio presence. Macri has learned how to do it from the other side of the ideological spectrum.
@sebalacunza