Contributions to Understand the Argentinian Labyrinth (translation)

By Alfredo Serrano Mancilla

Originally published at ALAI AMLATINA, http://www.alainet.org/es/articulo/173228

26/10/2015.

Everything that habitually happens in Argentina after an electoral date has commenced. The battle of the day after started even before the electoral day itself had ended. Everyone proclaimed themselves the winners. Sergio Massa (Unidos por una Nueva Argentina [United for a New Argentina]), that achieved third place, assumed himself the winner because it was the first time he stood in a presidential election and he obtained a good result, 21.34%. Second placer getter, Mauricio Macri (Frente Cambiemos [We Change Front]), with 34.33%, sees himself with possibilities to be first. And the first place getter, Daniel Scioli (Frente para la Victoria [Front for Victoria]), with 36.85%, forcibly happy, because in the end there wasn't any other option but to celebrate being the person who got the most votes despite being far from what was desired.

With this panorama, what one can affirm is that up until this moment there still isn't a President. The first round only served to open the debate for the second round. In Argentina, one only wins in the first round if it happens that: 1) you get more than 45% of the votes, or 2) you get more than 40% and you have a difference of 10 points with respect to the second highest tally. Neither of these two situations has taken place. The country already thinks about a second round, the first time in history, on the 22th of November: the contest will be between the pro-government candidate Scioli and the conservative Macri.

The majority of the polls showed again their incapacity to ascertain the electoral preferences in a country where society has changed drastically in a few years. There hasn't been any poll that has dared to predict a margin so narrow between both alternatives after that a few months ago, in August, in the Obligatory and Simultaneous Open Primaries (PASO), Scioli obtained 38.67% facing the 30.12% of Macri. What happened between the PASO and what happened in this electoral conflict? What has occurred with these more than 8 points of difference that has now converted itself into only 2? What happened to the 54% that the President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (CFK) obtained in the previous presidential elections of 2011?

Some reasons to respond to these questions are the following:

1. The principal thing, undoubtedly, it that Scioli wasn't the best candidate of the Kirchnerist projects. During these months officialism tried to set up the idea that “the candidate is the project” as a formula, to combine the figure of Scioli with what Kirchnerism has been doing. All the evaluations of Kirchner policies and of the President were looking very positive (above 50%) in the recent months. It was so much like this that the the electoral tactic of the opposition wasn't characterised by confrontation. The campaign didn't focus on the nationalisation of YPF[1], or Aerolíneas Argentinas, nor the triumphant restructuring of foreign debt, nor on the public policies guaranteeing social rights. Scioli tried to capitalise on all of it, but he didn't manage to do it. He tried to be the candidate of the project, but he didn't achieve it. There was too much difference between the candidate and the project. Scioli isn't written with a K.

2. CFK didn't want to (or couldn't) be the determinant throughout the campaign. The President withdrew even since before it was established that Scioli was going to be the candidate. She scarcely participated in the campaign. She didn't managed build up a candidate more tailored to her either, more allied to the centre of Kirchnerism. She didn't have that fight; or she had it, but lost; or she believed that she didn't have a winning candidate in her ranks; or she trusted in herself believing that she could think about the next presidential contest without having won still this one. This “distance” of CFK from the elections has had a high cost. The figure of the Vice-President, imposed by the President, Zanini, appeared, at moments, to be a candidate from another party. More an ally than a running mate. The Kirchnerist proposal for the Province of Buenos Aires, Aníbal Fernández, wasn't correct in light of the results: he lost a Peronist bastion at the hands of the Macrista María Eugenia Vidal. In short, you can affirm that the President didn't add up to what was expected. It was so much so that for example her most symbolic and important organisation in these years, the Cámpora[2], didn't even attend the closing of Scioli's campaign. In politics, every detail counts. And this “attitude of distance”of CFK from Scioli has undermined and surely erroded more than what was predicted.

3. Scioli carries the weight of an administration of eight years in the Province of Buenos Aires (36% of the electoral roll), with his good decisions, but also with his mistakes. He has a presidential profile, but very distance to the epic, to the emotivity, of the Kirchnerist narrative. Scioli didn't manage to identify himself with the youthful impression that has so much characterised Kirchnerism in recent years. He is too much from the 20th century, perhaps, for 21st century politics. His discourse is surely typical of a more obsolete Peronism than that which Kirchnerism has been moulding. Besides, Scioli opted for scarcely confronting: he preferred to talk like he had already won. He accepted easily in this way the field proposed by Macri's advisers (especially of Durán Barba) of avoiding to dirtying himself in the boxing ring. And in politics, in the democratic electoral game, to win, you have to enter the arena, and fight, giving and receiving, with respect, but also cornering to the rival questioning him on every proposal. Surely, it will be like that the Scioli that we will see from now until the end of the campaign of this second round. Better late than never.

4. The Argentinian right has known to reinvent itself. That which appears to be an isolated attempt with Macri as the leader in the capital, has today converted into a movement with a presence in all the territory. Macrism went from a little: to covering the length and breadth of the country. Bringing together in the first stage characters know to be remote from traditional politics. But later, in the second moment, it commenced to weave alliances with old political parties (particularly with radicalism) to provide itself with territorial structure. Macri has been using a very 21st century language, with the new tone of the right on good terms. Constantly avoiding confrontation; distancing itself from its own past of neoliberal appearance; knowing to carry out everything advanced by the political opponent. It has scarcely proposed anything new despite having wanted to present itself as the leader of change. Its programmatic emptiness was packed  with political marketing. This is the new strategy of the regional right that obeys good sportsmanship and resignation that the new common sense is characteristic of a change of epics in Argentina and in a good part of Latin America. In this way Macri has managed to slip through to a second round with real options of winning. This election it has tallied up; it leaves with the wind in its favour. But its real capacity of victory will depend a great deal on how it finds itself in a ring against Scioli. Up until this moment, a scenario not desired either by one or the other. We will see what happens from now on.

5. The mediator, Massa, managed to remain inside despite the duel of the two. Massa, the past of Kirchnerism, and now more anti-Kirchnerist than Macri, knew to negotiate what is supposed to be the importance of the votes useful in this type of electoral situation. He snuck into the party to stay. His discourse had a pendular movement: from conservative right in everything referring to punishment against insecurity, and liberal in everything economic. He was more critical of the role of the State than Macri. He looked to the extreme for confrontation, which served to express with notoriety his political proposal. No doubt that getting 21% of the vote permits him to constitute himself as the key to the second round. In his speech last night, he put his price: he sold himself to the highest bidder. Although everything appears to indicate that he will end up as an ally of Macri, one mustn't either rule out that he might offer himself to Scioli (he is anti-Kirchnerism, but it isn't so clear whether he might be anti-Scioli); or maybe he might not decide for either of the two in an explicit way thinking from here more on what could happen in four years.

6. Finally, it is always a key that brings with it the maximum difficulty at the time of explaining what happened in a electoral contest: it is that which we call the people. In Argentina, in these years, the social majority isn't by any means that which left from the crisis, from the playpen, from hungry and from misery. The change is change in all is fullness. And meanwhile what society thinks, demands, imagines, and votes for transforms. What a decade ago was a social demand, today (fortunately) is a naturalised right. The people want more; they have new questions, and it requires new responses. The popular and plebian can't at all be conceived as a static category. This is without doubt one of the fundamental axes of these future years in dispute, between the attempt of conservative restoration and the process of change that is in march.

These are some lines to understand what happened in this new map of Argentinian electoral politics after the elections. There isn't else left to do, but await the following electoral date to know who will be President from the 10th of December this year. From now, starts another campaign that had nothing to do with the previous one. Surely, the final outcome will depend more the Kirchnerist strategy than on what Macri can do. What Kirchnerism proposes and what Scioli decides to do will be the keys to what comes. But that is already another story.


- Alfredo Serrano Mancilla is the Director of the Strategic Centre of Latin American Geopolitics (CELAG).








[1] YPF, the initials of Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales ; English: "Fiscal Oilfields ", is a vertically integrated Argentine energy company, engaged in the exploration and production of oil and gas, and the transportation, refining, and marketing of gas and petroleum products


[2] La Cámpora is an Argentine political youth organization supporting the governments of Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. It is named after former Peronist president Héctor José Cámpora.

Ana Elisa Osorio: “This is the worst crisis in the last 40 years” (translation)

“Voting for another option in the Process[1] that isn't the government isn't a betrayal”

Originally published at: http://www.aporrea.org/ideologia/n275968.html

By: Carlos Carcione and Lucero Benítez - Marea Socialista (Socialist Tide) | Tuesday, 18/08/2015 10:59 AM | Printable version

As we announced in the interview carried out with Professor Héctor Navarro, in this submission we present an interview carried out with Ana Elisa Osorio. Doctor, Deputy of Latin American Parliament, ex-minister of President Chávez, ex-member of the national leadership of the PSUV[3]. Remembered for her valiant attitude confronting the coup d'etat in April 2002. Today in the struggle against corruption, she is part of the Platform for a Public and Citizen Audit against Embezzlement from the Nation.

How do you evaluate the current situation, from the point of view of the people that have been accompanying the revolutionary process?

Ana Elisa Osorio: We are currently passing through a difficult, complex situation, in which, that from my point of view there is a breakdown of the morale of the people in relations to principles.

In that sense, I believe that this is the worst crisis that we have dealt with in the last forty years. In previous crises nobody lost morale, nobody gave up losing morale faced with the difficult moments like the coup d'etat or the oil strike-sabotage. In contrast to previous crises, the people now don't feel supported in the difficulties. We have never reached the situation in which we are today. The government already seems less than what it was previously.

Of course there are aspects of this crisis that are objective, among them are the economic elements like inflation, like smuggling. But the other aspect of the crisis is more subjective, it is a crisis that hits morale and public sentiment.

The revolution remains in these moments only in the hearts and minds of the people. A people that, by the way, in the midst of all of this situation is confused.

Of course, not all the issues that influence the crisis are exogenous. The administration of foreign currency is a black box, for example. Also there are objective conditions for all the corrupt people in the government at the moment. There is currency flight, and also there are multiple exchange rates, that influence everything.

There are great shortages, and many of the achievements of the process have deteriorated a lot, above all in the area of food products, the food missions. In the area of health, there has been a mistaken direction of no having an orientation to primary healthcare, what they have made the hospitals do to themselves, they might collapse at the moment, or that we might have technology in the healthcare area that is being underutilised, because it wasn't planned at the level of the necessities of the people.

During these years there was a redistribution of the income that translated into important achievements. But in this moment I consider that we are going back to the situation before Chávez.

Based on this and returning to the issue of the elections, I see that in these upcoming elections for the National Assembly there is Chavista[4] discontent that doesn't want to vote for the government nor the MUD[5]. I see that there is “neither-nor” feeling that comes from the people that feel a betrayal of the Chávez model, and that because of that nowadays they are “neither-nor”.

The polls say that we are losing, and it would be terrible that the right might achieve the majority in the National Assembly given that it can get rid everything that remains of the revolutionary process. Therefore there must be a policy for those who don't want to turn out to vote.

Who benefits from the situation of the dollar?

AEO: There is bad management and corruption of the public funds and the foreign currency that enters the country, around which different actors are connected.

On the one hand there is a corrupt national bourgeoisie that doesn't produce anything, and that has its counterpart, that are the people that are in the organisations that have do the negotiations for the awarding of foreign currency to that sector, like CENCOEX[6].

If that counterpart didn't exist inside of those organisations, everything that is happening wouldn't be happening. When we ask ourselves to whom and how the currency is handed over, we see that there is a great degree of complicity inside those organisations. But the issue of corruption related to foreign currency goes both ways, on one side by those who request the dollars and on the other side by those who award them.

That has led us to the situation we are in currently of bankruptcy due to a bad administration of the foreign currency coming from the oil income, not due to a crisis like that of the coup d’etat on the 11th April or that of the oil strike.

Returning to the electoral theme, what do you think about the elimination of direct voting for the representatives of Venezuela to Parlatino?

AEO: It surprised us all the change announced in the previous months with respect to the method of selecting the deputies to Parlatino. In that sense, it might mean that in contrast to what some say, the treaty that Venezuela signed about Parlatino isn't violated, careful with this. Nevertheless, it is important to know that in Venezuela we were pioneers in electing our representatives to this organisation, in the framework of protagonist and participative democracy expressed in our Constitution.

The measure brings the discontent of all the deputies to Parlatino, but not all of them have made statements in that respect. The opposition have said it and I have said it myself. The rest haven't expressed it due to a question misunderstood discipline. I'm not saying that I don't believe in discipline, because I firmly do believe in it, the question is in that that fact represents a step backward for protagonist and participative democracy.

To the contrary of what has been decided here, at the moment there other countries in which that move to selecting by popular vote the representatives to Parlatino, like in Boliva and Ecuador.

And about the recent ruling of the CNE[7] that demands gender equality for all the lists of candidates?

AEO: The CNE on other occasions had named that resolution, and this year it has done it, only that from my point of view, it has done it at a bad time, that is to say, after the primary elections have happened, and after many candidatures have been defined.

I agree with the question of parity. The CNE makes a positive discrimination, as the representation of women to the National Assembly is very small. Due to which it is necessary, in the sense of making that women project themselves further into the spaces of public life, further than their domestic sphere of existence, in the community.

What I believe is incorrect about this measure is doing it at the wrong time. And that it is applied only to the small parties, and not to the big ones like MUD or PSUV. In both sectors there are more men than women as candidates.

Then, the CNE is permissive with them and not with the rest? It represents a discriminatory and anti-democratic fact. These decisions of the CNE at the wrong time, aren’t in of keeping with a trajectory with respect to what it has meant and done in the past.

What is the policy to get the neither-nor people to participate electorally?

AEO: I believe that one option is looking to the coordination among all the so-called small parties of the process, if there was a third party or third option that emerges from the revolution, like that, from my point of view, is the solution.

On something I insist, and it is that the way isn't abstention. I believe in joining to other parties of the process, and in the invalid vote as an alternative.

It also must be clear that voting for another option in the process that isn't the government isn't betrayal. It is the high government that betrays Chávez, when they don't contain the problems when they have a solution.

We live in a society that it becoming sick, and it isn't solving in a strong way the things, that isn't by the way of force, it is with a coherent government.

In Venezuela we had far exceeded the “every man for himself” mentality, a situation that we are lamentably returning to...

Definitively, we need a leadership that helps to reverse this situation.




[1] The Bolivarian revolutionary process

[2] Latin American Parliament (Parlatino), is a regional, permanent organization composed by the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean that was created in 1964. It is a consultative assembly similar to the early European Parliament.[1] Currently the institution is being considered to become the legislative organ of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.

[3] United Socialist Party of Venezuela, the main party of government supporting the revolutionary process

[4] People that are supportive of policies and politics of Hugo Chávez

[5] Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (Democratic Unity Roundtable; MUD), the electoral coalition of right-wing Venezuelan opposition parties.

[6] National Bureau for Exterior Commerce that issues foreign currency for trade.

[7] Venezuelan National Electoral Council