Argentina general elections, 27 October 2019. Open Primaries 11 August

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

Legislative, Presidencial, and some Provincial elections will be held in Argentina on 29 October 2017.
The election is held in up to "two"-and-a-half rounds: the PASO (August 13), the actual election and a possible second round between the two most voted Presidential candidates

Today we had the first official announcement of a declared candidacy from the Presidency....

Guillermo Moreno (PJ-Unidad Ciudadana , the very controversial kircherista secretary of commerce (officially a lower rank position) and later the economy attache to the Embassy at Italy (because he is pals with a good friend of Pope Francis). His only declared policy as of today is that "if he wins he'll the give (the 51% that is owned by the state of) YPF (the partially state-owned oil and gas corporation) to the CGT (the largest labor union confederation)

He is extremely unpopular, and is remember for his extremely shady control over the National Statistics Institute (Indec), which he used to fake every economical statistic imaginable (including the inflation rate and the poverty line) and his very unlikeable personality (there's the rumor that he used a revolver to threaten business owners on private meatings)

He was sentenced in 2017 to a 2 and a half year suspnded sentence and banned for life from holding public office  for malversation after wasting over US$ 20,000 of public funds in balloons, flags and posters attacking an opposition newspaper

Moreno's list got 2.8% of the votes in the 2017 Buenos Aires City PASO

He would participate in a broad Partido Justicialista (PJ) - Frente para la Victoria (FpV) primary
In coclusion, he has no chance of winning,


Other politicians that said they'd like to run (but haven't made any official announcements) include:

-Mauricio Macri (Cambiemos-Pro )

-Juan Manuel Urtubey ( PJ ), governor of the very conservative northern province of Salta since 2007, and the peronista governor that is closest to the national govenment

-Felipe Solá (PJ-Frente Renovador , 2002-07 governor of Buenos Aires Province for FPV-PJ, he later turned to the opposition and became one of Sergio Massa's strongest allies, he'd run in a PJ primary, including one with Cristina. He's been a Representative for Buenos Aires Province since 2009, being most re-elected in 2017 for Massa's Frente Renovador

-Agustin Rossi Unidad Cludadana, leader of the Unidad Ciudadana block in the House of Representatives (the group closest to Cristina Kirchner)

-Ricardo Alfonsín Cambiemos-UCR), Presidential candidate for the UCR in 2011, and one of the harshest critics of the national government within Cambiemos


Rumored and undeclared candidates:

 -Cristina Kirchner( Unidad Ciudadana)
 -Maria Eugenia Vidal (Cambiemos-Pro,govenor of Buenos Aires Province and one of the most popular paliticians aligned with the national government

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

According to this article, a Senator by the name of Miguel Ángel Pichetto from the Front for Victory, has said that CFK will be a Presidential candidate next year:

https://www.lmneuquen.com/pichetto-aseguro-que-cristina-kirchner-va-ser-candidata-2019-n599126

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

Pichetto broke with the FPV and formed his own caucus Argentina Federal, he's trying to call someone else to run so that Cristina won't get all the PJ votes in the first round

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

Pichetto broke with the FPV and formed his own caucus Argentina Federal, he's trying to call someone else to run so that Cristina won't get all the PJ votes in the first round

So you believe him when he says that CFK is running?

[Antonio the Sixth]

What are Macri's approvals like? And what have been his main policies in office?

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

Universidad de San Andrés, June


Management & Fit, released yesterday
35% approve, 54.9 disapprove

Poliarquia, June
42% approve, 55% disapprove

[Antonio the Sixth]

Huh, what was that big bump about in late 2017?

[Velasco]

I think this is an excellent opportunity to post my map of the 2015 presidential first round. Sadly, I didn't make the runoff. Leading candidate by provincial subdivision*. Click right button to enlarge:

* _{BsAs City: comuna
BsAs Province: partido or municipality
Everywhere else: department}

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

Just a short update

The economy is in an even worse state than it was a few months ago (we just had the peso's second large devaluation in two months [by this time last year 1 Dollar =17 pesos, now it's at 38, and on Thursday it got to 42 on some private banks, losing 15% of its value in one single day], and again with no real planning by the govt, yearly inflation will be between 35 and 45%, Macri asked the IMF to get all the funds a lot earlier than expected, wage stagnation, negative economic growth, constantly rising costs of public services and oil, etc)

Cristina's intentions to run are clearer than ever before, but she's deep involved in a huge a corruption case that's being investigated by a national judge, and there's been quite few businessmen close to the Kirchnerista government, politicians and people close to politicians (mainly their drivers and secretaries) who have acted under the Repentance Law and have gotten plea deals (or are trying to get them) in exchange for their declarations

The non-kirchnerista PJ+Massa still don't have a unified candidacy, and it's unclear if they'll try to cooperate with (aka get concessions from) the government

Their have been no significant declarations from the center left to form a united candidacy or primary
Macri is at his weakest moment, due to the awful state of the economy

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

Alex, do you think Macri would survive an election against CFK? What is the Left's best bet against the President?

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

The state of the economy is still quite terrible: annual inflation got to 47,6% for 2018, the highest in the last 27 years, stagflation has become the norm, the GDP decreased by 3.5% last year, wages (from both the public and the private sector) have risen by a lot less than the inflation rate, and every economic prediction made by the government has failed by a mile (or more)

Major presidential candidates and parties:

Cambiemos:
-Mauricio Macri (Pro) is the only candidate from within the government coalition running for the presidency once again, after Lilita Carrió officially retired and Maria Eugenia Vidal will run for reelection as Governor of the Province of Buenos Aires

-Martín Lousteau (ECO?), the 2015 candiate for “Mayor” of Buenos Aires, currently a representative for the City in Congress, and former Economy Minister and President of the Central Bank under Cristina, hasn’t yet decided on whether he’ll run for president, mayor or for Congress, and depending on which office he choses he may run within Cambiemos, possibly in a primary with more loyalist politicians, or outside the coalition

Unidad Ciudadana/Frente para la Victoria:
-Cristina Fernández de Kirchner hasn’t confirmed if she will run for the presidency, she’s the only politician from her block with real chances of getting to the second round, as the other ones are a very few ultra-loyalist minor politicians

-Guillermo Moreno, the controversial former Secretary of Commerce (a theoretically lower position than its US homonym), mostly known for manipulation every possible statistic he could get his guns on, violently threatening businessmen on private conferences, his aggresive personality and his weird connections to Pope Francis is actively running for the presidency, even if everyone else thinks he’s a joke

-Daniel Scioli,  the FPV candidate for president (and runner up) in the 2015 elections, will be launching his campaign in a few hours. Apparently he'd be running a very moderate campaign and supports a large-field Peronista primary and he would stop his campaign if Cristina confirms that she will run

-Agustin Rossi, the head of the FPV in the lower house will run if Cristina doesn't

-Felipe Solá, Diputado since 2007 and former Governor of Buenos Aires Province for FPV. He went into the opposition in 2008, went into an alliance with Pro and later became a key member of Massa's Frente Renovador, he became closer to Cristina in late 2018. He will run if Cristina doesn't


Non Kirchnerista wing of the Partido Justicialista/Alternativa Federal/Frente Renovador:

-Roberto Lavagna, Nestor Kirchner’s Economy Minister and 2007 presidential candidate, has bee touted by many important peronist politicians (including former president Eduardo Duhalde and senator Miguel Ángel Pichetto) as the main contender for the non-kirchnerista wing of the PJ, he hasn’t yet confirmed his run in (although he has been talking about it a lot more in the last week), and he’s still opposed to participating in the peronist primaries, so far he has gotten generally very positive results in the polls for a third party candidates.

-Sergio Massa, the leader of the Frente Renovador, third-placer in the 2015 presidential elections, is the other main contender from the Peronista / independent block, he wants to run, but after his ultimately disappointing results in 2015 and 2017 he has very little backing from within the political class

- Juan Manuel Urtubey, the Governor of Salta is also running and officially launched his campaign in late January

- Humberto Tumini, for some reason the leader of Libres del Sur (a small left-wing party) decided to run in this primary

Alternativa Federal has recently rejected the possibility of participating against FPV in the primaries

Other candidates:

Marcelo Tinelli: the host of the TV show with the largest audience in the country (Showmatch, a combo of sketch comedy, a very raunchy version of Dancing with the Stars and internal drama) hasn’t confirmed if he’ll run, but the chances of him doing so don’t look particularly high, even though he could easily be the most voted candidate outside of the traditional parties. Update: He won't run for president, and has been quite close to Lavagna in recent weeks

Partido Libertario

-José Luis Espert, the economist and frequent pop-political TV show guest, launched the local Libertarian Party a few months ago

Alfredo Olmedo: the controversial congressman in the yellow jacket from Salta is running to the right of everyone om social issues and has got some support from Evangelical leader after his recent born-again baptism Update: he was the first major candidate to drop from the race (in late March), he wil run for the Governorship of Salta. In his final declarations he cassually mentioned his fears of the legalization of zoophilia and how the government supports the otherkin

The usual suspects:

Frente de Izquierda y de los Trabajadores: the main hard-left alliance will most likely have a primary between its 2 member parties with Nicolas del Caño and Jorge Altamira Romina Del Plá as the most likely candiates for each of its wings. Maybe they'll run as a united list in the PASO, maybe they'll run against each other

Izquierda al Frente por el Socialismo: the other, and much smaller Trotskyist coalition, they have no chances of getting to the actual elections as they won’t be able to get anywhere near the percentage needed to get over the PASO primaries. Their pre-candidates are Celeste Fierro and Manuela Castañeira

Mauricio Yattah, a perennial candidate mostly known for his personal "War of the Dividing Wall" ( a legal feud with his neighbor, a local judge, in the beach city of Mar del Plata ), and less well-know for trying to lazily pretend to be Mauricio Macri in the 2015 ballot, and his crazy self-help-style messages on his """"party'""" buildings, he claims to be a "21st Century Anarchist"

The far right may run a few candidates with 0 chances of getting anywhere

The traditional center-left non-kirchnerista parties (Partido Socialista, Margarita Stolbizer’s GEN haven’t done anything so far, Update: some PS leaders have been very close to Lavagna

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

A few small updates:

There are ongoing talks inside Cambiemos about whether they should let Lousteau to participate in the party's presidential primary, or if he should run for senator, with a few national UCR politicians and many local ones trying to convince Pro of letting him run

In La Pampa Province the UCR's Daniel Kroneberger (65%) defeated Pro's Javier Mac Allister (35%), and in Cordoba the UCR and Pro failed to make a united ballot for the provincial general election and will compete with each other in the primaries, OTOH Pro's candidate for governor dropped out and the only candidate for Cambiemos will be UCR's candiate, now the mayor of Santa Fe city


The IMF has been meeting with opposition leaders, including Lavagna, Massa and kirchnerista hardliner Kicillof

Alternativa Federal would present a unified list for congress, and it looks like there won't be multiple AF primary lists competing against each other

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

My money is actually on CFK... if she isn't jailed of course.

Anyways, approval of the government is at an all-time low:

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

Daniel Scioli, the FPV candidate for president (and runner up) in the 2015 elections, will be launching his campaign in a few hours. Apparently he'd be running a very moderate campaign and supports a large-field Peronista primary and he would stop his campaign if Cristina confirms that she will run

In other news, the Cambiemos coalición won't be running united in the Province of Córdoba, as the UCR will run on it's own and won't participle in the Cambiemos primaries

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

Alternative Federal will wait until June to decide if their presidential candidates will ran against each other in the PASO (as preferred by Massa and Urtubey) or if there will be only one ballot for president in the alliance (as preferred by Lavagna)

[alancia]

Primaries in Chubut today, I'm going to vote in a hour (My first vote!)

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

Lousteau said today that he's officially leaving Cambiemos

[Lumine]

So on a scale from 1 to Fernando De la Rúa, how screwed would Macri be at this point? Any chance things get better for him before the election?

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

Cristina launched her book Sinceramente (Sincerely) in an act today, it has been considered by many as her unofficial campaign launch

[LoneStarDem]

Why is she plotting a comeback ? The conservatives are making a comeback in Latin America.

[Walmart_shopper]

Why is she plotting a comeback ? The conservatives are making a comeback in Latin America.

The Argentine economy is a mess, Macri is extremely unpopular, and she has a very real shot at winning. Also, it's not clear that we should extrapolate trends from two countries (Brazil and Chile) for the entire region, especially when the left showed surprising strength in Colombia, straight up won Mexico, mostly won in Costa Rica and Panama, and is in a solid position to hold Uruguay and Ecuador, and may win Argentina.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Why is she plotting a comeback ? The conservatives are making a comeback in Latin America.

there's no such thing as predictable pan-continental trends outside the fevered dreams of journalists. Nobody in Argentina goes "well, I was thinking about voting for the Peronists this time around, but Brazil just elected Bolsonaro so..."

[LoneStarDem]

Why is she plotting a comeback ? The conservatives are making a comeback in Latin America.

The Argentine economy is a mess, Macri is extremely unpopular, and she has a very real shot at winning. Also, it's clear that we should extrapolate trends from two countries (Brazil and Chile) for the entire region, especially when the left showed surprising strength in Colombia, straight up won Mexico, mostly won in Costa Rica and Panama, and is in a solid position to hold Uruguay and Ecuador, and may win Argentina.

Apparently the ghost of Chavez is alive & well UGH.

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

Today, Córdoba Province (the second largest, with 3.5 million inhabitants -roughly 8% of the country's total population) voted for Governor, state legislators and county authorities (including mayors)

The result was quite predictable, as Córdoba is the most anti-kirchnerista province (the FPV didn't even run a candidate for Governor),Cambiemos presented 2 different competing lists and it's not a Province that's friendly to far-left candidates

Despite only 4.77% of the votes have been counted so far, the winner is very clear

-Juan Schiaretti (inc.) (Hacemos por Córdoba/Alternativa Federal/PJ) : 59.97%
-Mario Negri (Córdoba Cambia/UCR+Pro) 16.62%
- Ramón Mestre (Unión Cívica Radical) 12.10%
Everyone else (Encuentro Vecinal [a Cordoba-based socially conservative party], Frente de Izquierda [left wing], MST [left wing] Partido Humanista [center left], Vecinalismo Independiente [right wing?] , Unión Ciudadana [Libertarians] , UCeDe [fiscally conservative, used to be relevant in the '80s and 90s] MAS [left wing] and Mov Acción Vecinal [IDK]) under 2% each

The De La Sota-Schiaretti conservative wing of the PJ has been governing the Province since 1999

Minor update: with 23% of the votes counted Schiaretti Is now slightly under 50%

[H. Ross Peron]

1) How much is the Nisman affair affecting Cristina's electoral prospects?

2) Is Lavagna running on a more economically centrist/left-leaning platform compared to previous dissident Peronists given his role as an economic advisor in Nestor Kirchner's cabinet?