Geographic political divides in countries

[YoMartin]

Electoral behavior is guided in Argentina basically by income and education (which, of course, are also related): as these get higher, the lower the tendency to vote peronist, and viceversa. So major cities are generally non-peronist, while their (poorer) suburbs and smaller cities are more peronist.

The non-peronist vote is not uniform, either. The richer areas in big cities go for center-right non-peronist options, but they generally loose to center-left non-peronists supported by the middle class. The three main cities (Buenos Aires, Rosario, and to a lesser extent, Córdoba) usually choose this last type of mayors.

40% of the national vote is concentrated in Buenos Aires and its suburbs, so presidential elections are mostly decided there. In the city peronists rarely get over 25%/30% of the vote, but their vote share increases as the distance from the city grows: in the poorer suburbs they could get over 65%/70%.

[YoMartin]

Kirchner was the gobernador of Santa Cruz, wasn't he? Geez that place needs work. Still, it's beautiful.

Where abouts do you live? I presume BsAs, which is a pretty cool place, although I never left the Capital federal. My favourite major city in Argentina was Cordoba, though; my least favourite Corrientes.

Well, Santa Cruz is just fine economically. I think only around 200.000 people live there and they have plenty of oil, so... I think unemployment is less than 4%, lowest in the country. Of course, I can´t imagine myself living in such a boring (and freezing cold) place...

That´s right, I live in Buenos Aires. ¿Cordoba? ¿Really? As for major cities I´d say Rosario, Mendoza or Salta are cooler.

[YoMartin]

I hadn´t realized our two main cities have big phallic symbols as monuments. It´s.... a bit disturbing...

Not because I´m porteño myself, but I think no other city here matches Buenos Aires. Except for having a river, maybe, which would be nice (the city is built in such way that the you barely notice the Rio de la Plata).

[YoMartin]

And for Rosario, those who knew it some time ago say it has improved a lot recently. I dare to say this in a US forum, but... the socialists have ran it quite well for the last 16 years.

[YoMartin]

How do the more touristic Andean areas vote, and also Missiones? (Neuquen-Bariloche-Esquel etc.)

Misiones has elections coming up to reform the province´s constitution. It´s been traditionally the most bipartisan province of all, with peronists (PJ) and radicals (UCR) getting repeteadly over 90%. Now that the radicals are in shambles and the peronists have split, the two main parties are Frente para la Victoria (the label adopted by peronists that support Kirchner), led by governor Rovira, and some huge opposition alliance called FUD. This alliance is solely united in their opposition to allowing unlimited reelection to the governor. Even the church is in this alliance, which es very rare (I think it´s the second time in Argentine politics that a priest runs in an election). Polls show Rovira leading by 5-10%. Unlike most provinces, the capital (Posadas) is not much less peronist than the rest of this (very poor) province.

Neuquén politics, on the contrary, has been dominanted for decades by a provincial party (MPN). The MPN has mostly been close to the peronists, and in fact its origin lies there (when peronism was forbidden, some "neo-peronist" parties were created). Its electoral map is quite diverse, though, and hardcore left parties grew in areas where privatization of the gas company led to high unemployment. The center-left FREPASO also got very good results in the 90´s, and elections used to be very competitive between MPN, FREPASO, PJ and UCR. Today MPN is clearly the largest party, although the capital is still ruled by the UCR.

Bariloche always seemed strange to me, since it has a large population of german origin (and I´d say, pro-nazi simpathies) but FREPASO got great results there in the 90´s. As a middle class city, however, that choice was more understandable. In the last governor´s election the radical candidate won there.

As for Esquel, I have absolutely no idea. It´s a really small city, though. The only election I remember there was a referendum called to allow the construction of a mine there, which was defeated by a large margin.

This is a great site, with lots of data and maps: http://towsa.com/andy/index.html

[YoMartin]

New poll for Misiones´ election (http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/709/2053/1600/678.jpg) gives Rovira an 8% lead. The pollster is fairly reliable, although he´s close to Kirchner. Rovira is not doing very well, considering he´s got Kirchner´s support (he even went there last week) and the president is getting a (barely believable) 75% in the province: http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/709/2053/1600/348.jpg

[YoMartin]

Well, it´s an 8% lead (this said by an FpV pollster) and it´s still a few weeks before the election, so victory for FpV is not guaranteed. The FUD has support from the left, the right, the church, the capital (Posadas) mayor (a former ally of him, who still supports Kirchner), even from the two labor federations, CTA and CGT, which (especially CGT) are close to Kirchner at the national level. Rovira must have done something wrong to create this massive lineup against him... And an 8% lead, considering you´re being supported by an extremely popular president, it´s sub-standard, to say the least.

The latest development is really strange: as I said, FUD´s top candidate is a priest. He asked for retirement last year (he´s 75, or something like that), and the Vatican decided to accept that... only yesterday. This was seen as a gesture from the Vatican, meaning that they don´t oppose Kirchner. Of course, it might just be a coincidence, but who knows, it may end up hurting FUD.

[YoMartin]

ShjzohMartin (Argie pronunciation ), what's news now re: Missiones?

Hehe, we do pronounce the "y" in an unusual way... Well, us porteños do, but not in Misiones actually (they pronounce it more like an "i").

Elections were held last sunday, and defying most polls, the opposition to Rovira´s re-election plans won fairly easily (56-43). Rovira´s performance in Posadas, the main city, was disastrous: 66-34. Here are the stats, map, histogram, etc.
http://towsa.com/andy/totalpais/misiones/2006cc.html

There are many reasons for his defeat. First, trying to change just one article of the constitution (the one that forbids unlimited re-election) is stupid, he should have wrapped that within a larger reform. And second, the last couple of days of his campaign were a display of machine politics rarely seen (even in a country, and a province, were machine politics is common). And middle class urban voters don´t like to see those things.