What is good for Sergio Massa isn’t necessarily good for other dissident Peronists
Sunday, November 1, 2015
Victory Front (FpV) candidate Daniel Scioli showing off his football skills to kids in William Morris, in the district of Hurlingham.
By Sebastián Lacunza
Editor-in-Chief
Editor-in-Chief
Until last week, Argentines were witnesses to a presidential campaign which has been perhaps the most boring and vacuous since the return of democracy in 1983. Idea men enjoyed the trust of most candidates, who repeated slogans rather than elaborate speeches or define their identities. Following a period of anesthesia and diminished differences, the country is now facing a runoff election that makes many (politicians, pundits, media and voters) excited by the opportunity to make a historic leap while to many others, it puts them before an abyss of reviving traumas that were believed to have been left behind.
Daniel Scioli and Mauricio Macri’s candidacies ended up almost tied after the first round, which meant, according to the widespread presumption, an unexpected victory for the latter. So the fate of the election is in the hands of about 29 percent of the electorate who voted for dissident Peronist Sergio Massa (21.3 percent), the Trotskyist Nicolás del Caño (3.3 percent), UCR dissident Margarita Stolbizer (2.5 percent) and the dissident Peronist Adolfo Rodríguez Saá (1.7 percent), or expressed their preference for the blank or null options (three percent).
It is likely that the drift of the votes received in the first round by del Caño and Stolbizer — beyond their suggestions — will respectively head towards Scioli and Macri, as we have pointed out in the Herald. Those 5,600,000 voters for dissident Peronists Rodríguez Saá and Massa now have the floor going into the runoff.
Massa backed Macri this week in all but name, which seems understandable.
When the former Tigre mayor abandoned Kirchnerism in the first half of 2013, he placed himself at an equidistant point between the ruling party and the toughest opposition stances, just before turning immediately to more defined conservative stances. Massa deepened his shift this year, in line with Macri’s strategy to moderate his discourse.
If the current mayor of Buenos Aires is elected president, Massa will have the opportunity — sooner or later — to travel through the political spectrum to collect the wounded and perform the role of opposition. Even in a wind-assisted field, the place of the opposition leader will not be given away to Massa. President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner will be there after December 10, given she has already announced that she will be ready to stay on the track.
Even if Massa prefers that Macri take office, in a political twist of enormous impact both in Argentina and the region, he cannot publicly endorse his former (and future) rival. On the other side, a Scioli win will strengthen the official Peronist structure, with Macri occupying all the institutional and popular spaces gained this year. Then, Massa will have to find his destination.
But what is good for Massa doesn’t necessarily mean that it is good for the rest of dissident Peronists that shared the space of a New Alternative (UNA). In fact, ejected from the ruling party and many municipalities, and threatened by Macri’s Let’s Change, it is conceivable that many Peronists from the provinces (in the north, Entre Ríos and even Córdoba) and in municipalities in Greater Buenos Aires find reasons to return to a common space, more so when a divisive Kirchnerism is inexorably set to lose ground. Some of them find themselves as active agents against Macri and have started to build bridges to Scioli. In that regard, beyond Buenos Aires, the message from a dissident Peronist may have more sway on November 22 than from Massa himself.
The map of the gains and losses of votes with respect to the August primaries shows that Scioli bit the dust in the most disadvantaged districts of Greater Buenos Aires, in the rural area of the province, in Entre Ríos, and above all, in the northern provinces of Tucumán, Jujuy, La Rioja and San Juan. The perfect strategy drawn up by Macri’s advisers played out as planned. Not only did Massa retain votes in those districts, acting as a dam for a leak going to Scioli — as Macri had hoped — but he also drew ballots from the Victory Front. The dissident Peronist also had huge gains in the province of Santa Fe, which lessened the blow of the losses in Córdoba.
Macri’s perfect night was capped off by the swing of hundreds of thousands of votes in his favour in Córdoba and Greater Buenos Aires, to the detriment of Massa’s alliance (as José Manuel de la Sota was no longer competing) and Scioli, respectively.
Let’s Change’s challenge in the next three weeks is to entice voters for Massa who have similar socio-demographic characteristics to the Kirchnerite support, or that even split from Scioli after the primaries, to continue the shift.
That may prove to be more feasible in the bigger cities where Massa’s message is more prevalent due to his omnipresence on TV screens in comparison to provinces where voter’s choices are more related to local concerns.
The game is tied. One of the teams seems like it has been cut in half, with both halves showing strategies that seem dissonant — it is evident that some of the players are fighting and the fans have been stunned. There is a sensation of permanent assembly. The rival seems to be organized, amazingly confident as it finds itself 10 minutes out from the final whistle with unexpected strength. Its fans are exuberant. However, it’s anybody’s game.
@sebalacunza