2015 Election Season in Argentina (1st Round, Oct 25 / Runoff Nov 22)

[Edu]

LOL, f**king country. Glad I didn't waste my time going to vote in this rain.

[Edu]

LOL, f**king country. Glad I didn't waste my time going to vote in this rain.

It's not surprising; hard to feel enthusiasm for the candidates. Is there any risk of penalty if you don't turn out? I guess not, but in theory vote is mandatory.

Theoretically there are is some bureaucratic stuff you can't do if you haven't voted and apparently you can't work in the public sector, but no person I ask seems to know exactly what those things are.
My father hasn't voted in 10 years and he has so far not encountered one single problem.

If you ever get trouble for it you only need to pay a fine which is currently 50 Pesos per election missed. 50 Pesos is more or less what a Cappuccino + tips costs in a good cafeteria so it's not really a big deal.


What's troubling in this election is that Anibal Fernandez is winning the primary in the Buenos Aires province. Considering that whoever controls the province basically controls half the country this is a scary thought.

My preferred result would be Macri president and Vidal as governor, but I could live with a Scioli/Vidal or Macri/Dominguez combo. Hell, a Scioli/Dominguez combo would be more or less a continuation of what's happening now, so meh.

But any combination with Fernandez in the equation is horrible, especially if it's Macri/Fernandez, there's potential for half of the contry to go up in flames.

The only hope is that Fernández scares enough people that a lot of votes that went to Sola who came third and to Dominguez who lost the primary go to Vidal and she somehow manages to win. It's very unlikely however.

[Edu]

What happened to the left? Left-wing candidates came in first and second in the last two election. Now the Front for Victory has nominated a right-winger, shouldn't at least some of the voters be going elsewhere?

Mate, let me give you a piece of advice. You are never going to make any sense out of Argentine politics  if you keep thinking about them in left wing - right wing terms.

In 1995  right wing neoliberal peronist Carlos Menem got reelected with almost 50% of the vote. In 2011 populist left wing peronist Cristina Kirchner won with around 54% of the vote.
If you look at the maps of the 2 elections you will notice that the districts (not the provinces, but the districts inside those provinces) voted almost the exact same way. This means that the majority of the people that voted for menem in 95, voted for Cristina in 2011.

You also have to look at who the main opposition was in those elections. In 95 it was José Bordón, a left wing peronist in the mold of Kirchner. in 2011 it was first Eduardo Duhalde in the primaries (peronist to the core) and then Hermes Binner (non peronist socialist).

This is a simplification but you'll see that certain parts of the country will ALWAYS vote for the governing Peronist (it doesn't matter if they are fascist, marxists, neoliberals, social democrats or whatever) and the other parts of the country will ALWAYS vote against those peronists (and again it will not matter if those are communists, right wingers, other peronists, centrists, whatever).

Fluctuations may occur but you'll have a better idea of our recent elections if you look at it this way.

[Edu]

The only hope is that Fernández scares enough people that a lot of votes that went to Sola who came third and to Dominguez who lost the primary go to Vidal and she somehow manages to win. It's very unlikely however.

All considered, Vidal made a good election and there could be a polarization between her and Fernández. Do you think it's possible an agreement between PRO and the Renewal Front in the province?

Yeah, she did way better than I expected, I mean, she is still the deputy Chief of Government in the City of Buenos Aires, the fact that she went from being completely unknown in the province to a more than respectable 30% in a gubernatorial elections is amazing. For comparison the candidates that ended up 2nd in the 2011 and 2007 elections got about 16% and 17% respectively.

Anibal Fernandez is probably the "scariest" candidate that the kirchnerists could possibly nominate for governor so yes, a lot of votes that could stay with Sola or go from Dominguez to the other kirchnerist candidate have a much greater chance than normal in ending up for Vidal.

If this were a normal country Macri and Massa should be already talking about what to do in the Province of Buenos Aires. Having the president and the governor of Buenos Aires from opposing parties has always ended up in disaster (not that there is a lot of precedent admittedly). One of them winning and then having Fernandez in charge of the province is what nightmares are made of. In fact they should be talking about what alliances they could make all over the country, including with the UCR, the socialists and whoever want to get on board.
But this is Argentina, they will disappoint.

[Edu]

What happened to the left? Left-wing candidates came in first and second in the last two election. Now the Front for Victory has nominated a right-winger, shouldn't at least some of the voters be going elsewhere?

Mate, let me give you a piece of advice. You are never going to make any sense out of Argentine politics  if you keep thinking about them in left wing - right wing terms (...)

This is a simplification but you'll see that certain parts of the country will ALWAYS vote for the governing Peronist (it doesn't matter if they are fascist, marxists, neoliberals, social democrats or whatever) and the other parts of the country will ALWAYS vote against those peronists (and again it will not matter if those are communists, right wingers, other peronists, centrists, whatever). [/b]

I think this quote in a previous post is related:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

It seems to me that cleavege has a strong sentimental dimension, too. It's very hard to comprehend if you are an outsider, and I am one of those.

Oh my, I missed that post and you put it much more eloquently than I did.

[Edu]

The government said that they were going to start giving results after enough votes had been counted and that the first official results were estimated to be released at 11 PM (1 hour and a half ago). Pretty embarrasing, the justice minister went on air with some bullsh**t excuse half an hour ago.

Considering that most people were expecting Scioli to win by about 8% and be close or surpass 40% this result is great.

Hell, C5N , which is a Kirchnerist news channel announced 5 minutes before the polls friggin closed that not only Scioli had won handidly but that today he was going to become the next president. Wankers.

The biggest news of the night though is that Vidal is beating Anibal Fernandez by 5 points, it will probably become closer and Anibal might squeak by, but she has a solid chance to win the Buenos Aires province which would be huge (the last time a Non Peronist won the province was in 1983 and it was just because the peronist candidate was clinically insane). In fact I believe that winning the Buenos Aires Province is as important (if not more) as winning the presidential election.
Quite a few of the historic mayors of the metropolitan area are also losing which is and extremely desirable outcome.

All told, I think the election went better than expected, it made me happy and it rounds off a great weekend for me.

[Edu]

Vidal holding steady in the Province of Buenos Aires with 75,55% reporting.

She actually has gone up a little to 39,80% and 34,73% to Fernandez.

Where's the "It's happening" gif when you need it?

[Edu]

Scioli will end up winning by 2 or 3 points which is risible compared to the expectations.

[Edu]

88,24% reporting

Scioli up by 0,96%

[Edu]

By the way, I think it's fitting to quote this post from Velasco where he made a summary of the polls 5 days before the election.

ROFL

Last polls for the presidential first round that will take place on Sunday. Daniel Scioli is on the verge.

Ipsos-Mora y Araujo (Oct 15): Scioli (FPV) 42.0%, Macri (Cambiemos) 28.2%, Massa (UNA) 22.9%, Stolbizer (Progresistas) 3.4%, Del Caño (FIT) 2.6%
         
Management & Fit (Oct 17): Scioli 38.3%, Macri 29.2%, Massa 21%, Stolbizer 4.8%, Del Caño 2.9%

Giacobbe y asociados (Oct 17): Scioli 40.3%, Macri 28.7%, Massa 20.1%, Stolbizer 4.7%, Del Caño 4.4%

Circuitos, Consultora de Estudios Sociales, Políticos y Territoriales (CCESPT, Oct 17): Scioli 39.1%, Macri 26.9%   , Massa 20.2%, Stolbizer   3.6%, Del Caño 4.9%

Centro de Estudios de Opinión Pública (CEOP, Oct 18) Scioli 40.7%, Macri 28.2%, Massa 21.9%, Stolbizer 4.4%, Del Caño 3.8%

[Edu]

President
91,61% reporting

Scioli = 36,27%

Macri = 34,83%

Massa = 21,28%


Governor of Buenos Aires
93,11% reporting

Vidal = 39,62%

Fernandez = 35,04%

[Edu]

Are there run-offs in the governor races too?

Nope.



It's also worth noting that Vidal has won in Quilmes and in Morón which are the territories of Anibal Fernandez and Martin Sabatella
The Kirchnerists mayors in those 2 municipalities also lost.

[Edu]

LOL, I need to go to sleep. So last update.

President
96,21% reporting

Scioli = 36,75%

Macri = 34,43%

Massa = 21,33%

Governor of the Buenos Aires province
95,64% reporting

Vidal = 39,51%

Fernandez = 35,16%

So yeah, in the end the difference between Scioli and Macri is going to be about 3%-4%.

The best news of the night is that Maria Eugenia Vidal will be the new governor of Buenos Aires. Don't really care about Macri, but thankfully the province will not be officially ruled by the piece of sh**t Fernández

[Edu]

From the gubernatorial elections you missed:



Formosa (98,32% reporting)

Gildo Insfran (FPV) 73,32%

Luis Naidenoff (Frente Amplio Formoseño) 25,90%


La Pampa

Carlos Verna (PJ) 48,62%

Francisco Torroba (Propuesta Frente Pampeano) 36,34%


Santa Cruz (96,67% reporting)

Alicia Kirchner (FPV) 51,58%

Eduardo Costa (Union Para Vivir Mejor) 45,81%

[Edu]

Since Argentina probably has the most confusing party system of any country (and I don't know which provinces are important/competitive), I'd be interested in knowing whether these results are good or bad for Kirchner and whether the left or right made gains.

4 provinces and a city (The City of Buenos Aires, the Province of Buenos Aires, the Province of Córdoba, the Province of Santa fe and The province of Mendoza) make up about 66% of the population of the country, with the other 19 provinces making up the remaining 34%.

All 5 districts are now in control of the opposition. A big blow

The most important one being The Province of Buenos Aires which accounts for 40% of the population and was controlled by Peronists since 1987. That was the Biggest blow.
Also, much of the power is concentrated among the mayors of the different districts in the Metropolitan area of Buenos Aires and a bunch of them lost.

Kirchnerists lost majority control of the chamber of deputies too.


And well, answering to your question about wether the left or right made gains is a pretty daunting task since the opposition is made up by leftists, centrists, rightists, you name it. Let's just simplify it by saying that peronism in power lost and the center or center-right had a great election adn that the party of mauricio Macri, who is the big winner of the elections has a bunch of peronists in there too.

[Edu]

Would Buenos Aires need a new mayoral election if Macri wins?

Nope, the mayoral election already happened back in July. In the first Round Horacio Rodriguez Larreta from PRO and close advisor of Macri won with 45,56% of the votes, followed by Martin Lousteau who ran on some kind of centre left coalition and got 25,47%. Both of them qualified for the runoff.
The Kirchnerist candidate, Mariano Recalde,  ended up third with 21,91% and failed to make the runoff which was a first for a candidate from the FPV.

The runoff ended up like this

Rodriguez Larreta (PRO) = 51,64%

Lousteau (ECO) = 48,36%


He'll take office on December 10th.

[Edu]

I'd try to get another endorsements as Rodríguez Sáa brothers, Solanas, Lousteau.

Solanas is a non-entity, wonder why would anyone seek his endorsement. In any case, a few days ago he made a tweet that said "Proyecto Sur, que siempre se enfrentó electoralmente al kirchnerismo y al macrismo,  propone votar contra el gobierno nacional." From which we can infer he would probably vote for noone or support Macri.

And Lousteau is another one that doesn't really matter for the national election, but apart from having meeting with the opposition governor of Mendoza he tweeted this yesterday "Alternancia, más equilibrio, balotaje @mariuvidal y no @FernandezAnibal, renovación de intendentes PBA. #lagentevotabien." Which also implies his support for macri against Scioli.


De la Sota is probably noticing right now that Macri got around 53% in Córdoba while Massa and Scioli barely reached 20% and they don't even get 40% between the two of them. If I were him I would be pressing Massa strongly to form an alliance with Macri.

[Edu]

Posted this on AAD



So, it's official, Cristina Kirchner is no longer president. So now we have President Macri you are thinking...well...not yet, for the next 12 hours till midday of thurdsay 10th of December the president is oficially the provisional president of the senate Federico Pinedo (PRO). Why this happened? well, there has been a ridiculous controversy over the past few weeks about where the oath of office and the subsequent ceremony where to take place. The Kirchnerists wanted everything done in Congress (like it was done a couple of times) and the Macristas wanted half in Congress and half in the government house which is the Pink House (like it's traditionally done). Why this discussion happened? several theories abound but going into them today will make me go to sleep at 3 AM, we'll leave it for later.

Long story short, the tone of the conflict escalated, Macri accused Cristina of doing everything she could to disrupt the transition, Cristina claimed that Macri called her and shouted and threatened her (which sounds like bullsh**t), the judiciary was brought into this and in the end a judge ruled in favor of Macri and declared that the term of Kirchner officially expires at 23:59 of Wednesday, so here we are.

Cristina will not go to the oath or the ceremony and every Kirchnerist deputy will also be missing. The kirchnerist senators were given the freedom to do what they want but I don't expect to see a lot of them there. Some kirchnerist governors already announced that they would be attending anyway.

So, eh, congrats president Pinedo