The presidential election in Argentina is tomorrow and it’s my sad duty to say a few words about it. Sad because whoever wins there’s no real chance that there’ll be any improvement to the country’s desperate economic and social situation.
1.
First, forget the opinion polls. They are used everywhere to shape preferences as much as to measure them but in Argentina that’s their only function. As there’s no reliable polling no one knows what’s going to happen. If no candidate gets 40% of the valid vote and is at least 10 points ahead of their nearest rival then the top two candidates will go to a runoff election in a month.
2.
Sergio Massa is the Economy Minister and the government’s candidate. The son of Sicilian immigrants, he started his political career in the far-right UCeDé before moving on to peronismo. Eventually he became Mayor of the Greater Buenos Aires suburb of Tigre, Deputy for Buenos Aires Province, Cabinet Chief to Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and President of the Chamber of Deputies. He got the gig as the government’s candidate because President Alberto Fernández didn’t want to seek re-election and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, still a real force within peronismo, wanted a fall guy to take responsibility for losing the Casa Rosada,
He accepted because he’s had one overwhelming desire throughout his adult life and that’s to become President of Argentina. He has no ideology beyond what he believes to be good for his image at any particular moment. He’s been both a key player in kirchnerismo and its deadly enemy, and now he’s back in the fold. He’s neither for nor against any particular policy. What he wants is to somehow keep the show on the road with himself as ringmaster. He’s been Economy Minister for more than a year and things have deteriorated considerably under his mandate. Inflation is now north of 130% and poverty sits at about 40% of the population, a situation that would lead most Economy Ministers to resign rather than run for President. Undaunted, Massa has pressed ahead with his candidacy and is talking as if he had nothing to do with the present government. His most notable electoralist measure so far has been to sharply reduce income tax; an audacious move given the state of the government’s finances and a gift to those in well-paid formal employment, a lucky minority in Argentina.
If Massa becomes President we’ll have more of the same: an ever more bloated and unproductive public sector, secret deals with China and the solving of budgetary problems by printing money. As well as excellent opportunities for rent gathering for Sergio’s many good friends in the local business community. And Sergio will be President and for Sergio that’s all that matters.
2.
As her name indicates Patricia Bullrich Luro Pueyrredón comes from one of the country’s most aristocratic families. In her youth she was an activist in revolutionary peronismo and like many others fled the country during the 1976-83 military dictatorship. Reports vary about whether she was personally involved in what would now be called terrorist activities.
In any case she has long since abandoned peronismo. She was Labour Minister in the ill fated government of Fernando de la Rúa from 2000 to 2001 and Security Minister in Mauricio Macri’s government from 2015 to 2019 during which time she won the loyalty of the federal security forces, no easy task, especially for a woman with her background in the 1970s, and pursued a strong law and order agenda.. She’s the object of profound hatred from everyone with a peronista identity because she’s seen as someone who betrayed the great cause which she embraced with such enthusiasm in her youth, and because she knows the movement from the inside. Had she remained a peronista they’d regard as a national hero.
Were she a European politician Bullrich would fit comfortably into the Christian democratic tradition. Yet in Argentina many progressives and leftists regard her as an intolerable authoritarian. If she becomes President she’ll try to apply some basic measures to rationalise the economy: simplify and eventually eliminate the byzantine exchange control system, stop printing increasingly worthless banknotes to finance the budget deficit, reduce taxes on exports, and reduce the role of “cooperatives” and “social movements” in distributing social welfare. The problem is that all this will be fiercely opposed by the trade unions, progressives, disfavoured business sectors, and peronismo in general. And by opposed I mean constant street action and strikes, as well as parliamentary opposition. Whatever their exact political beliefs, peronistas believe that a non-peronista in the Casa Rosada is a profoundly anti-natural state of affairs and one that must be reversed as soon as possible and by any means necessary.
So, a Bullrich administration will mean strife from day one and a huge struggle to get reforms through Congress and effectively implemented on the ground. Amnesty and HRW will express concern about police methods and mutter about the shadow of dictatorship. The PhD in Political Science class will write articles in the foreign media about the erosion of democracy. In short a Bullrich presidency will be at least as conflictive as the Macri one and probably more so given the depth of hatred the peronistas feel towards her.
3.
By now many of you will have read something in the anglophone media about Javier Milei and how he’s going to sweep away democracy in Argentina and replace it with a fascist dictatorship. I wrote a somewhat alarmist piece along the same lines when he came from nowhere to lead the field in the primary elections back in August. Since then he’s been subject to far greater media scrutiny than before and we can say with a certain amount of confidence that all the talk of establishing a market for human organs, abolishing gun control laws etc. is for the peanut gallery and to stimulate the incel vote.
Milei’s candidacy is being backed to the hilt by the mighty food service workers union and its leader Luis Barrionuevo, a man who has been at the centre of power in Argentina for the last 30 years. He’s not supporting Milei so that his members can be fired at will and lose their benefits. Anyone who tried that would immediately find their own personal security and prosperity threatened.
To understand why you have to expunge from your mind any notion you might have of trade union leaders as selfless defenders of workers rights. In Argentina if you get to the top of one of the big unions then you’re guaranteed a rock star income, a choice of mansions to live in and eternal reelection to your post because usually no one dares stand against you. For the sake of decorum you may allow a friend to “run against you” knowing that he’ll lose by a margin that makes North Korean and Cuban elections seem like festivals of democracy. The very rare contested elections are highly tense affairs that frequently involve violence. Many union bosses have side hustles in sport, truckers leader Hugo Moyano is an important figure in Independiente football club as is Barrinuevo in Chacarita Juniors. When they have an uncooperative business to intimidate they can thus not only rely on heavies from their unions they can also call on their club’s “barra”, i.e. a highly organised group of its most committed supporters who run protection rackets on merch sales and parking and any number of other criminal activities. And when they want to support a political candidate they can provide venues, security, and bodies to wave flags in front of the stage
Believe me, Barrionuevo isn’t backing Milei because he wants him to sweep away his empire in an orgy of neoliberal reform. . He’s doing it because he’s cuter than a shithouse rat and he believes that he can manipulate him and in this he’s surely right. Milei has no political machine to back him. He’s a tiktok and tv studio product, he has no one loyal to him on the ground to get things done.
And that leads to Milei’s biggest problem; if he wins, how is he going to govern? And more immediately, how to find candidates for down ticket races? The answer to the latter question that he’s found is to get some from Massa, yes Massa, his notional deadly rival has populated Milei’s candidate lists for him.
“But isn’t that insane? It makes no sense!”
You’re obviously not familiar with Argentine politics, especially not with peronismo. Peronista politicians are committed to winning, that’s all. When the Washington Consensus was in they were totally into it, when human rights became all the rage they embraced them, now it’s pound shop libertarianism so why not have a bet on that, especially as Milei seems certain to take votes from Bullrich.
Both Barrionuevo and Massa are thinking of the day after if Milei wins. He’ll have a very small representation in Congress and no provincial governors. What’s he going to have to do? Make deals. With who? The peronistas are already working to make sure it's them.
The big problem with Milei isn’t the headline grabbing proposals or the chainsaw. It’s his mental stability. I think it’s doubtful that he’ll be able to deal with the frustrations of running Argentina for very long. If he resigns his Vice President Victoria Villarruel takes his place. She’s not mentally unstable but she is a fanatic and not so much an apologist as a fan of the 1976-1983 military dictatorship that tortured and murdered tens of thousands of citizens during its reign of terror. If she gets her rear end onto the sillón de Rivadavia, the mythical seat of presidential authority in Argentina, it’ll prove very difficult to remove her from it.
4.
Whoever wins, the future for Argentina looks bleak. Massa means the continuation of the peronist - business - union mafia that has brought the country to its knees, Bullrich means modest reforms that will be resisted tooth and nail by the aforementioned mafia and will likely be frustrated by them. Milei means putting a plainly very unstable man in charge of the country, with the same mafia attempting to absorb and guide him.
My vote would go to Bullrich
………………..
The photo of a villa miseria is from here