Argentina 2011: Election day Sunday 23th october (POST ELECTION)

[redcommander]

This post may be considered as trolling , but....

who is this Boudou ?

He looks like a football coach !!! (and believe me, in my mouth, that's hugely contemptuous )
his hair, his facial hair, his nose, his wrinkles, his stupid eyes, even his tie knot !!!
he doesn't look credible at all !

Well, now that I'm calmer , my question is: where does he come from ?

He's her economic minister who gets a lot of good press for the economic growth the country has been going through. I've never really thought of the football coach comparison before, but I think his good looks are a way for Kirchner to appeal to female voters.

[big bad fab]

What is his background ? Where does he come from ?
I saw on Wikipedia that he is a salesman.
This guy seems simply mediocre.

In France, a former judoka as clever as a cow is a junior minister (since yesterday)... everything is of course possible .

[redcommander]

What is his background ? Where does he come from ?
I saw on Wikipedia that he is a salesman.
This guy seems simply mediocre.

In France, a former judoka as clever as a cow is a junior minister (since yesterday)... everything is of course possible .

He was, but his political experience seems very extensive. Edu probably knows more about him than I do, but I would say it was a pretty good pick for Krichner considering she probably wanted her vp to be someone she could groom to take over when she leaves the presidency in 2015 (if she's reelected of course .)

[Edu]

Boudou was the director of the ANSES (Social security, unemployment subsidies and other stuff like that) for about 1 year (he had worked there for a while before though) and since July 2009 he has been Argentina's Economic minister. Alongside current mayor of Tigre, Sergio Massa (Also former cabinet chief in Cristina's administration, now in opposition). These 2 guys were credited for most of the work done there which is pretty well regarded even by some members of the opposition.

Last decade he was apparently pretty right wing economically even being a part of the party of Alvaro Alsogaray. Which probably makes me think that he's not a peronist but has to keep up appearances

From his appointment as Economy minister till Nestor Kirchner's death he wasn't all that powerful since he had a lot of clashes with Nestor and had little say about economic matters (which is hilarious considering he is...well...the economic minister ). His lack of media appereances during the time also reflects this. He was pretty close to Cristina though and when Nestor died Boudou took a more active role in things.

And well, i don't really know what Else to say, this guy started to get little mentions in the media since about 2006, he was starting to get known while economic minister in 2009 but he only came to national prominence in 2010, so there's not much else i can tell you about him I'm afraid.

Oh, here's his girlfriend Agustina Kampfer, if you like this kind of gossip




Redcommander is right though. He was probably the best candidate Cristina could pick. He's young and pretty charismatic. He's pretty popular with the youth in general (Young people are becoming one of Kirchner's main assets). He's not deeply tied with Peronism which could be a plus in the City of Buenos Aires and in some sectors in the Province. And while the economy is not booming as it was some years ago, as i said before, a lot of people feel the country is going in the right direction and that the economy is healthy and like it or not he's the visible face of all this right now.
Urtubey was too conservative and Abal Medina had a name that would have turned a lot of people off. Having Alicia Kirchner would have been considered too much nepotism even in this country and all the other candidates were deep into the peronist movement which would probably alienate Cristina non peronist allies and supporters.
Boudou is a guy that can get her some more votes and as i see it the only real way he would be a drag on the ticket is if the economy completely tanks between here and October which is not that likely and really, in that case not even Jesus Christ himself on the ticket would save Cristina.


This weekend I'll try to make a summary of the Mayoral election in Buenos Aires which is shaping up to be one of the most interesting elections of the year.

Oh and by the way, remember that i said last week that Martin Buzzi, the opposition candidate that won in Chubut was probably going to become a loyal Kirchnerist in a few months? Well, 2 days ago he officially announced that he was going to vote for Cristina and that we should support her. LOL, he didn't waste any time, did he?


And speaking about Flip Flops, remember that guy? Carlos Menem? President of Argentina from 1989 to 1999? A huge enemy of the left because of his neoliberal policies, the guy that had problems with Nestor Kirchner dating back from the mid 90's, the guy Nestor couldn't name without knocking on wood, one of the most reviled men in politics for the past 10 years?
Well, he's running for reelection as senator from La Rioja with Kirchnerist support and he recently said that Cristina was a great president.
That's a pretty awesome flip, from both sides

[RodPresident]

Menem is doing same game that Collor and Sarney in Brazil. They give support to government and they got government support and popularity in return in their poor provinces.

[redcommander]

Menem is doing same game that Collor and Sarney in Brazil. They give support to government and they got government support and popularity in return in their poor provinces.

Why aren't Menem and Collor in prison right now? Weren't there notorious corruption charges against both?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Menem is doing same game that Collor and Sarney in Brazil. They give support to government and they got government support and popularity in return in their poor provinces.

Why aren't Menem and Collor in prison right now? Weren't there notorious corruption charges against both?

That's such a sweet question

[Edu]

Menem is doing same game that Collor and Sarney in Brazil. They give support to government and they got government support and popularity in return in their poor provinces.

Why aren't Menem and Collor in prison right now? Weren't there notorious corruption charges against both?

Hahahahaha...This is South America mate

I don't know the specifics about Collor, but in Menem's case, despite multiple charges since he left office he has never been actually convicted.

Sometime during Nestor Kirchner's presidency there were some rumors that new charges were going to be brought against Menem, but the guy won a seat in the senate and so he received parliamentary immunity. Of course he's now pretty cozy with the government and he's 81, so i suppose prision is out of the question

[big bad fab]

Boudou was the director of the ANSES (Social security, unemployment subsidies and other stuff like that) for about 1 year (he had worked there for a while before though) and since July 2009 he has been Argentina's Economic minister. Alongside current mayor of Tigre, Sergio Massa (Also former cabinet chief in Cristina's administration, now in opposition). These 2 guys were credited for most of the work done there which is pretty well regarded even by some members of the opposition.

Last decade he was apparently pretty right wing economically even being a part of the party of Alvaro Alsogaray. Which probably makes me think that he's not a peronist but has to keep up appearances

From his appointment as Economy minister till Nestor Kirchner's death he wasn't all that powerful since he had a lot of clashes with Nestor and had little say about economic matters (which is hilarious considering he is...well...the economic minister ). His lack of media appereances during the time also reflects this. He was pretty close to Cristina though and when Nestor died Boudou took a more active role in things.

And well, i don't really know what Else to say, this guy started to get little mentions in the media since about 2006, he was starting to get known while economic minister in 2009 but he only came to national prominence in 2010, so there's not much else i can tell you about him I'm afraid.

Oh, here's his girlfriend Agustina Kampfer, if you like this kind of gossip




Redcommander is right though. He was probably the best candidate Cristina could pick. He's young and pretty charismatic. He's pretty popular with the youth in general (Young people are becoming one of Kirchner's main assets). He's not deeply tied with Peronism which could be a plus in the City of Buenos Aires and in some sectors in the Province. And while the economy is not booming as it was some years ago, as i said before, a lot of people feel the country is going in the right direction and that the economy is healthy and like it or not he's the visible face of all this right now.
Urtubey was too conservative and Abal Medina had a name that would have turned a lot of people off. Having Alicia Kirchner would have been considered too much nepotism even in this country and all the other candidates were deep into the peronist movement which would probably alienate Cristina non peronist allies and supporters.
Boudou is a guy that can get her some more votes and as i see it the only real way he would be a drag on the ticket is if the economy completely tanks between here and October which is not that likely and really, in that case not even Jesus Christ himself on the ticket would save Cristina.


This weekend I'll try to make a summary of the Mayoral election in Buenos Aires which is shaping up to be one of the most interesting elections of the year.

Oh and by the way, remember that i said last week that Martin Buzzi, the opposition candidate that won in Chubut was probably going to become a loyal Kirchnerist in a few months? Well, 2 days ago he officially announced that he was going to vote for Cristina and that we should support her. LOL, he didn't waste any time, did he?


And speaking about Flip Flops, remember that guy? Carlos Menem? President of Argentina from 1989 to 1999? A huge enemy of the left because of his neoliberal policies, the guy that had problems with Nestor Kirchner dating back from the mid 90's, the guy Nestor couldn't name without knocking on wood, one of the most reviled men in politics for the past 10 years?
Well, he's running for reelection as senator from La Rioja with Kirchnerist support and he recently said that Cristina was a great president.
That's a pretty awesome flip, from both sides

The Peronist movement (whatever it has meant throughout history) is probably one of the BEST political trends in world history .

[minionofmidas]

Menem is doing same game that Collor and Sarney in Brazil. They give support to government and they got government support and popularity in return in their poor provinces.

Why aren't Menem and Collor in prison right now? Weren't there notorious corruption charges against both?

Hahahahaha...This is South America and/or a Romance-speaking country mate

Corrected.

[redcommander]

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/07/07/uk-argentina-election-poll-idUKTRE7660BC20110707

It seems Alfonsin is getting a boost in the polls and is now at about 23%. Plus what's up with his alliance with de Narvaez? Is he the PRO's candidate of choice?

[Edu]

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/07/07/uk-argentina-election-poll-idUKTRE7660BC20110707

It seems Alfonsin is getting a boost in the polls and is now at about 23%. Plus what's up with his alliance with de Narvaez? Is he the PRO's candidate of choice?

Yep, the general feeling right now is that Alfonsín is the candidate that will finish 2nd. I thought he was going to tank but apparently a big chunk of the opposition is tired with so many peronists and the right wing voters apparently prefer him over Duhalde.
Binner's campaign has been pretty bad so far, people hardly knew him a few weeks ago and now...they still don't know him. I think he's going to improve a little on his polls but i haven't seen him do anything of note in the past 2 weeks.
Duhalde has also been pretty lame and is rapidly fading into obscurity.


As for the Alfonsín-De Narvaez-PRO thing, well it's a bit complicated. First off, you don't have to get confused thinking that Francisco de Narvaez is a member of the PRO, because he isn't. He is (or was) part of the "federal peronism" which are the right wing peronists and was just in an alliance with Macri 2 years ago called "Union PRO" but since then they have splitted.
De Narvaez did make an alliance with Alfonsín who supports him for governor of the province of Buenos Aires, but until a few days ago the PRO was going to field their own candidate for governor. Jorge Macri (Mauricio's cousin and current vicepresident of the lower house in the provincial parliament) was going to run but didn't, probably because of 2 factors. the first one is that he was obviously going to lose epically and the people on the right complained that he was just going to take votes away from De narvaez who has more of a shot. Also, PRO negotiations with Alfonsin, Alberto Rodriguez Saa and Duhalde to form an alliance with one of them failed miserably. So for now the PRO in the province isn't going to field candidates for congress or for the governorship and won't be endorsing or allying with anyone.

Jorge Macri is going to run for mayor of Vicente Lopez though (one of the most affluent districts in the province).

[redcommander]

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/07/07/uk-argentina-election-poll-idUKTRE7660BC20110707

It seems Alfonsin is getting a boost in the polls and is now at about 23%. Plus what's up with his alliance with de Narvaez? Is he the PRO's candidate of choice?

Yep, the general feeling right now is that Alfonsín is the candidate that will finish 2nd. I thought he was going to tank but apparently a big chunk of the opposition is tired with so many peronists and the right wing voters apparently prefer him over Duhalde.
Binner's campaign has been pretty bad so far, people hardly knew him a few weeks ago and now...they still don't know him. I think he's going to improve a little on his polls but i haven't seen him do anything of note in the past 2 weeks.
Duhalde has also been pretty lame and is rapidly fading into obscurity.


As for the Alfonsín-De Narvaez-PRO thing, well it's a bit complicated. First off, you don't have to get confused thinking that Francisco de Narvaez is a member of the PRO, because he isn't. He is (or was) part of the "federal peronism" which are the right wing peronists and was just in an alliance with Macri 2 years ago called "Union PRO" but since then they have splitted.
De Narvaez did make an alliance with Alfonsín who supports him for governor of the province of Buenos Aires, but until a few days ago the PRO was going to field their own candidate for governor. Jorge Macri (Mauricio's cousin and current vicepresident of the lower house in the provincial parliament) was going to run but didn't, probably because of 2 factors. the first one is that he was obviously going to lose epically and the people on the right complained that he was just going to take votes away from De narvaez who has more of a shot. Also, PRO negotiations with Alfonsin, Alberto Rodriguez Saa and Duhalde to form an alliance with one of them failed miserably. So for now the PRO in the province isn't going to field candidates for congress or for the governorship and won't be endorsing or allying with anyone.

Jorge Macri is going to run for mayor of Vicente Lopez though (one of the most affluent districts in the province).

That's interesting, so does the UCR have a good chance of making a lot of ground in Buenos Aires since the PRO has traditionally been strong there?

[Edu]

That's interesting, so does the UCR have a good chance of making a lot of ground in Buenos Aires since the PRO has traditionally been strong there?

The PRO alone in the province of Buenos Aires isn't really strong there, they only did well in 2009 because they were allied with other peronists. One of the reasons the PRO isn't fielding official candidates in the major elections there is because they would fail miserably.
Of course I think it's a given that those voters who would have voted PRO will strongly go for de Narvaez and i suppose that if Alfonsin continues to make even a slight ground in presidential polls they will support him too.
People who vote for de narvaez in the gubernatorial election (I'm not talking about those PRO voters i mentioned up there but about the people supporting de Narvaez from the start) aren't such a lock to vote for Alfonsin. Remember that a lot of those are peronist votes and they might favor Duhalde or Rodriguez Saa in a presidential election over Alfonsin.

Cristina will win Buenos Aires, but considering that the province has the largest numbers of voters in the country by far, it's terribly important for the other candidates to do well there and yes, Alfonsín might benefit.

We'll see, it's still a long way to go

Oh and it will sound dumb but just in case, to avoid confusion, i guess i should say that the City of Buenos Aires is an autonomous city, similar to Washington DC except that it gets to elect senators and deputies. It's not part of the Buenos Aires province (the capital of the province is the city of La Plata).
I'm saying this just in case people erroneously think that the people who'll vote tomorrow in the mayoral election would have a say in the gubernatorial election in October


By the way, i voted a few months ago in the botched "Federal Peronism" primary between Duhalde and Rodriguez Saa (Duhalde won narrowly in the City of Buenos Aires, but because of petty internal fights they cancelled the primaries and both Duhalde and Rodriguez Saa are running for president).
I will also vote tomorrow and there's basically a 99%chance there will be a runoff. Also I'll have to vote in the "primaries" on the 14th of August (this is something new and it's both hilarious and stupid, I'll probably talk about it later ). Then I'll vote in the presidential election in October and if there is a runoff I'll have to vote again.

So potentially this year I could be going to the polls 6 times in 6 different days in the same year.
This has to be some kind of record I guess

[Edu]

In other news, yesterday we had our last poll for the Mayoral election in the city of Buenos Aires.

Mauricio Macri (PRO) 45,3% - Daniel Filmus (FPV) 30,5% - Fernando "Pino" Solanas (Proyecto Sur) 11% - Maria Estenssoro (Coalición Civica) 3,2% - Jorge Telerman (FPBA) 2,6%

Then there are a whole bunch of others who fill the conviniently named category of "others"

This means we are looking at a runoff (no surprise there)

Looking at the trend one can see that Macri has been improving these past 2 weeks going from 40,8% in mid-june to 45,3%.
Filmus Made a jump from 23,2% in mid-june to 30,2% on the 1st of july which also coincided with a drop of Pino Solanas. and he has been pretty stable this past week.
Pino Solanas never really took off aparently, he was just 10% away from reaching second place in mid june but now he's pretty far away from that position.
Estenssoro and Telerman have been stable in their low numbers, the question for them would be if they can manage to get at least one of their guys elected to the city legislature.

There's other interesting data from the poll.

Macri is currently winning every age group, doing exceptionally well with the guys over 50 but in a close contest among the 18-29 group.
18-29: Macri 38% - Filmus 35% - Solanas 11%
30-49: Macri 38% - Filmus 27% - Solanas 13%
50 and over: Macri 50% - Filmus 25% - Solanas 8%

Among geographic areas Macri wins every one but does better in the north of the city which is also the most affluent. Filmus does better in the poorer areas and Solanas in the traditionally middle class areas.
North: Macri 51% - Filmus 22% - Solanas 10%
South: Macri 42% - Filmus 32% - Solanas 10%
Centre: Macri 40% - Filmus 33% - Solanas 9%
West: Macri 37% - Filmus 26% - Solanas 14%

We also have information of votes by gender
Men: Macri 37% - Filmus 31% - Solanas 13%
Women: Macri 48% - Filmus 26% - Solanas 8%

So, according to the recent polls this election is going to be pretty similar to the 2007 election with Macri mantaining his support.

[Edu]

I just finished voting for Pino Solanas, hoping that he reaches the runoff (not likely).
Took me 5 minutes to walk to the place, 5 minutes of waiting in a line, 1 minute to cast the ballot and 5 minutes walking back home. Great!


This year we are voting for "comuneros" (7 people per commune) for the first time. There are 15 communes that were created some time ago. Some communes like the 14th (the one I'm voting in) is entirely made up by the neighbourhood of Palermo. Other communes are formed by 2 or more neighbourhoods, like the 4th that includes La Boca, Pompeya, Barracas and Parque Patricios.

As I said we'll elect 7 people to serve in each commune and it is a decentralization move that has been awaited for quite some time. The central government of the city of Buenos Aires will give the 15 communes about 1.2 billion Pesos in total (about 5% of the city's budget).

The function of the Comuneros will be to fix specific and local problems in each of the neighbourhoods like the bad state of some roads, garbage problems, cleaning and reviving green spaces, etc. This may sound like little crap but the fact are that if someone wants to fix a road in front of his house he has to call the central city government and it could take ages to fix it (if it's even fixed at all. Also thanks to the government ineffectiveness, a lot of parks are deteriorating rapidly.
The idea behind this is to give more power to the people, so to speak. Hope they'll actually do that, I should be optimistic but this is Argentina after all

We should probably start having Exit Polls in about 3 or 3 and half hours, but apparently it is expected that official results will take more time than usual thanks to this new commune stuff. The expectation is that official results will start coming in about 6 hours.

[Edu]

First official results.

About 10% of the votes counted

Macri 45,3% - Filmus 30% - Solanas 13%


Now they have updated it and we have 23% of the votes counted

Macri 47,4% - Filmus 28,4% - Solanas 12%

Apparently Estenssoro (Carrio's candidate) is 4th with about 2% of the vote, followed by Giudici of the UCR with a bit less than that and then former Mayor Jorge Tellerman with about 1,5%


Ok, now they are showing 25% and Macri has 47,8%, i'm thinking there is a chance this couls be over in the first round.

[Edu]

I still have no idea from where the votes are coming.
If they are coming mostly from the north then Macri's numbers will go down and if they are mainly from the south or centre then Macri could win with more that 50%. Of course they could be coming from all over the city and this numbers could hold

The PRO will probably add legislators and so will the FPV. The Civic Coalition of Carrio is the big loser in the election if we compare it to 2009


EDIT: PRO is also winning every commune

[Edu]

Something just happened, since now we are back at 23% of the votes counted with Macri 45,4% and Filmus 29,7%

Probably someone in the network I'm watching, screwed up the numbers before.

[Edu]

I just found the link with the official results, it's updating rather quickly

http://www.eleccionescaba2011.gob.ar/paginas/paginas/dat01/DGO01999.htm

[Edu]

57% reporting

Macri 46,5% - Filmus 28,5% - Solanas 12,9%

In the Commune 14 (the one i live in ) it's Macri 54% - Filmus 22% with 14% reporting.

The closest commune appear to be the 8th with Macri 42% - Filmus 37% Which makes sense since it's probably the poorest and most peronist area in the city.

In Recoleta which is commune 2 and one of the most affluent places in the city it's Macri 58% - Filmus 18%

[Edu]

In terms of the legislature the Pro is getting 44% of the votes and the official FPV candidate (Juan Cabandié) got just 15% which is about half of what Filmus got. Which is a pretty hard blow against Cabandié since this means that about half of Filmus voters decided to vote for other candidates for the legislature.
It has to be said that most of those other votes went to other "Kirchnerist" lists like for instance the one of Anibal Ibarra (Former Mayor) who got 7% and will be in the legislature, but Cabandié was an important member of "La Campora" which is the youth wing of Kirchnerism and they are the most virulent ideologues in support of Kirchner, so this is sort of embarrasing for the guy.

[Edu]

85% reporting

Macri 46,7% - Filmus 28,2% - Solanas 12,9%

[redcommander]

Do you know where there are official results for the city legislature and communes?

[Edu]

Do you know where there are official results for the city legislature and communes?

In terms of number of seats in the legislature and the communal councils, no.
I heard in the background some commentators saying that PRO probably gained 1 or 2 seats or in the worst case stayed even in the legislature. The FPV probably won 1 or 2 seats too. The biggest gain is apparently for the socialists (under Pino Solanas) who apparently gained 4 seats. But it's all unofficial.