A showdown nears

by M.B. Gambarotta

The upcoming midterm elections in Argentina are evolving into a showdown. Primaries will be held on August 13. The elections are scheduled for October. The big surprise is that former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who is running for the Senate in Buenos Aires province, is performing well in polls. CFK’s showing, even when plagued by a series of corruption investigations in court, has forced President Mauricio Macri’s centre-right coalition, Cambiemos, to reconsider its strategy.

Suddenly Elisa Carrió, the anti-corruption crusader who is Cambiemos’ candidate to the Lower House in Buenos Aires City, is heavily involved in the provincial campaign. Scratch the top of your head. Carrió is ahead in the nation’s capital. But in the neighbouring province, the nation’s largest voting district, polls tell a different story. Fernández de Kirchner is ahead in Greater Buenos Aires, the sprawling working class urban belt that surrounds the capital.

The pundits tell you that the problem for Macri’s coalition is the economy. The peso has weakened 7 percent against the dollar this month. Some analysts fear that a weaker peso will trigger further price hikes just when the Central Bank is trying to control inflation. Inflation annually hit 40 percent in 2016. At the start of this year the Central Bank was looking at an annual inflation rate target of 17 percent. It doesn’t look like that target will be hit. But Macri, with an annual inflation rate of about 20 percent still plausible, is telling voters that this year’s cost of living will be the lowest in the last seven years.

There’s more to life than just the economy — that’s what Macri’s camp would like voters to believe. Carrió’s prestige is about her fight against corruption. She is a former Radical Party lawmaker who during Kirchnerism’s 12 years in power headed a crusade against corruption. Carrió performed dismally in the presidential elections of 2011 when Fernández de Kirchner was re-elected with 54 percent of the votes. But since then Carrió’s popularity has resurged. Now Carrió enjoys direct access to Macri and seems to be playing a crucial role in Cambiemos’ bid to win Buenos Aires province.

Carrió has let off some fireworks in Congress by tabling a motion to expel lawmaker Julio De Vido, the powerful Kirchnerite Federal Planning minister between 2003–2015, from the Lower House. Carrió worked hard for a Lower House session to consider expelling De Vido for being “indignant” over the corruption allegations that he is facing in court.

The long session to vote on throwing out De Vido was held on Wednesday. Carrió’s camp needed two thirds of those present to vote in favour of expelling De Vido. Cambiemos had the backing of Sergio Massa’s Renewal Front. But when the time came to vote the result was 138–95 in the 257-seat Lower House. When the squabbling was over De Vido was not expelled. Those 138 votes whipped up by Carrió with her fire and brimstone rhetoric were not enough. The former minister attended the session and defended himself claiming that he was the victim of a sophisticated marketing ploy by the ruling coalition because he was a key figure during the 12 years of Kirchnerite rule, especially when the late Néstor Kirchner was president between 2003–2007. Carrió delivered a fiery speech during the session and openly accused De Vido of being the most corrupt politician in the land and of “treason.” Carrió’s bid was to rid the former minister of his parliamentary immunity to make it simpler for the corruption allegations against him to proceed. Still a close look at the vote shows that De Vido, even when he was never a favourite of Fernández de Kirchner’s, held his ground. Many dissident Peronist lawmakers, who are no longer loyal to CFK, did not vote in favour of expelling De Vido. Some observers speculated that De Vido forged many contacts and delivered many favours during his 12 years in office.

Still Carrió refused to accept the outcome of the Lower House vote as a defeat. If anything, she argued, it showed that voters should back Cambiemos in October so that it can win more congressional seats and make another bid to throw out De Vido later this year. Effectively Carrió’s aim is to turn the midterm elections into a vote about Kirchnerism’s alleged corrupt past.

Yet it’s never simple not to make an issue about the economic situation. Before the end of the week a dollar was trading for 18 pesos. Macri’s political future now depends on whether voters will go to the polls worried about De Vido or about how to make ends meet in a country with hefty utility rates, inflation and a weaking currency.

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