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ARGENTINA: Gearing Up
for the Presidential Race
By
Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES (IPS) - The government's poor showing
in Argentina's mid-term congressional elections
Sunday has cleared the way for would-be successors
to President Cristina Fernández in the 2011
presidential elections. Experts say that, at
present, no potential rival has a clear lead.
Argentine Vice President Julio Cobos, who is now
opposed to President Fernández, as well as
provincial governers and former governors who did
well in the contest, have taken up starting
positions for the presidential race due in just over
two years' time. In Sunday's ballot to renew half
the seats in the lower house of Congress and
one-third of the Senate seats, the government lost
their majority in both chambers.
Although on this occasion the vote for her political
sector was 13 percentage points lower than in the
2007 general elections, both the president and her
husband and predecessor, former president Néstor
Kirchner (2003-2007), are eligible by law to stand
for a second term in 2011.
The ruling Victory Front, a centre-left grouping
within the Justicialista (Peronist) Party (PJ)
founded and headed by Kirchner and Fernández, lost
ground in key districts, including the province of
Buenos Aires, the most populous in the country,
where the Front played its top card with Kirchner as
its leading candidate for a seat in the lower house
of Congress.
As a result of the defeat, which was downplayed by
Fernández on Monday, Kirchner resigned as leader of
the governing PJ.
"Anything is still possible: (Fernández) is only
half way through her term," political scientist
Marcelo Escolar, of the state National University of
San Martín, told IPS. He mentioned, as an example,
Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, whose
popularity declined over a transport crisis but
later rebounded to greater heights.
Nevertheless, Escolar said it was "unlikely" that
President Fernández or her husband would run for
reelection. "We have an open-ended situation and
we'll have to wait and see what decision they make,"
he said. In his view, Sunday's results produced no
clear winners, either.
Although there is no legal bar to Argentina's first
couple continuing in power, many analysts are now
predicting the end of the Kirchner era that began in
May 2003, above all because they see it as unlikely
that the Kirchners will adapt to an administration
style that, given the new composition of parliament,
will have to seek consensus and compromise.
Political analyst Rosendo Fraga, head of the Nueva
Mayoría think tank, told IPS that if Sunday's vote
is taken as an indication of the future presidential
elections, the result "put paid to the chances of
the Kirchner sector fielding a winning candidate in
2011."
During his term as president, Kirchner designated
his wife – a senator at the time - as the candidate
to succeed him, but that level of power enjoyed by
the Kirchners evaporated on Sunday.
"The governing faction did not only lose the
decisive province of Buenos Aires. It came fourth in
the city of Buenos Aires and in the province of
Córdoba; third in Santa Fe; and was defeated in
Mendoza, Entre Ríos, and even in Santa Cruz, the
Kirchners' home province," Fraga said, naming the
most populous provinces of Argentina.
But this reverse, he added, "does not necessarily
imply that the Justicialista Party cannot win the
next presidential elections." He pointed out that in
Santa Fe the winner was Senator Carlos Reutemann, a
member of the PJ who has distanced himself from the
Kirchners.
Reutemann, a former governor of Santa Fe, is
internationally known for his past success as a
Formula 1 racing driver. He was elected senator with
42.2 percent of the vote, in a slender victory over
his rival, socialist Senator Rubén Giustiniani, the
heir-apparent of socialist Governor Hermes Binner,
who is also a presidential hopeful for the
centre-left opposition.
Giustiniani garnered 40.5 percent of the vote.
Analysts say such a narrow defeat does not
necessarily put Binner out of the presidential race.
In contrast, Buenos Aires provincial Governor Daniel
Scioli, the new leader of the PJ, "has been
weakened," Escolar said. Scioli was second on the
Victory Front's list of candidates for the lower
house of Congress for the province, after Kirchner.
The winner in Buenos Aires province was business
tycoon Francisco de Narváez, a centre-right
congressman and anti-Kirchner dissident of the PJ.
His triumph over Kirchner was a major political
event, but he was born in Colombia and so cannot run
for president, a post the constitution reserves for
Argentine-born citizens.
However, another leading businessman in the
centre-right alliance that supported de Narváez,
city of Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri, emerged
as a possible candidate at the head of this new
opposition coalition, in spite of his influence
being restricted to the capital city and the
province of Buenos Aires.
Among the rest of the opposition there is also a
wide range of presidential hopefuls. Vice President
Julio Cobos, who became an opponent of Kirchnerism
in 2008, "is in pole position" for the race in 2011,
Escolar said.
Cobos, formerly governor of the western province of
Mendoza, was a member of the opposition Unión Cívica
Radical (UCR) when he became Fernández's ally and
running mate in 2007. Enmity arose between the
president and himself in 2008, during the stand-off
between the government and farmers' associations
over export taxes, when he cast a deciding vote in
support of agribusiness.
The vice president did not resign, but backed UCR
candidate Ernesto Sanz for the Senate seat for
Mendoza. Sanz won with 50 percent of the vote,
compared to half that for his governing party rival.
Cobos is eyeing the presidential nomination for the
Civic and Social Accord (ACS), an alliance between
the UCR, the Socialists and the Civic Coalition,
which garnered only one percentage point less than
the ruling party in the popular vote nationwide.
However, he is willing to compete for the ticket in
open primaries in order to ensure consensus.
The Civic Coalition, an important part of the
Accord, is led by former congresswoman Elisa Carrió,
who came in second behind Fernández in the 2007
presidential elections.
But Carrió was one of the big losers in Sunday's
elections, and her bid for the presidency may have
been cut short.
More concerned with strengthening her coalition at
the national level, she neglected the city of Buenos
Aires, where she had most support. She was third on
the capital city list of candidates for the lower
house, which was headed by economist Alfonso Prat.
According to some of her political associates, this
caused her coalition to come in third in the
capital.
Others, in contrast, say that voters rejected her
confrontational style, as Carrió is fonder of
complaints and criticisms than of positive
proposals. The same antagonistic approach is invoked
by analysts to explain voters' rejection of Kirchner
and his wife, President Fernández. |
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