Four months before the elections, an international NGO together with different local feminist groups launch a campaign asking for lists without violent or abusive candidates.
The initiative arose in Tucumán, but they aim to extend it throughout the country.
“They are empowered to present themselves as candidates, even if they have ongoing processes, a conviction or a complaint that has not been final.
For this reason, what we appeal to from this campaign is the
ethical commitment of the parties so that they control not having these candidates on the lists
, not offering them as an electoral alternative”, says Adriana Guerrero, feminist activist and national coordinator of the Latin American Committee and the Caribbean for the Defense of Women's Rights, Cladem.
The campaign was born in Tucumán, a province with well-known candidates and former officials with complaints of sexual abuse and violence.
Ricardo Bussi
-son of the late genocidal Antonio Domingo Bussi- who would run as a candidate for governor for his Fuerza Republicana party was denounced in 2020 for sexual abuse.
“We aim for lists without violent acts of any kind.
Not only batterers, but
those who do not meet the food quota
, which would be a type of economic violence”, they express from Cladem.
“There are these known cases, that of Bussi, that of one of the Orellana twins or that of José Alperovich –former governor of Tucumán, although he would not be a candidate in these elections–, but there are a lot of cases that are not known because they are community delegates or they go to smaller positions, then it does not transcend beyond the experience of the family and the victims”, says Milagro Mariona, a feminist activist.
The campaign was launched by the Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women's Rights and the Feminist Observatory of Tucumán.
"It is a responsibility of the political parties not to legitimize gender violence by enabling their participation -of violent and/or abusers- in the lists", states the campaign newsletter.
Although it emerged in Tucumán, its objective is to expand to the entire national territory.
“A young girl, 18 years old, from the interior of Tucumán approached us.
She understands that, although she is her father, she should not hold public office as a community delegate.
Three ex-partners denounced him for gender violence, he is also a food debtor.
She has three brothers and her mother never received a peso.
If these people don't comply with the law in their private life, what do we expect them to do in their political life?” says Mariona.
Ricardo Bussi, candidate for governor of Tucumán.
Until now, the activists say that the parties were reluctant to join the campaign.
In Tucumán, the only party that expressed its formal adherence was Política Obrera.
“This is a campaign that has no owner, that should be appropriated by the people, it is the ethical commitment of not having people who break the law or violate women –or dissidents– among the candidates”, says the national director of Cladem.
Some cases
"Lupe", Ricardo Bussi's complainant, belonged to his own party and, after filing the complaint, claimed to have been the victim of multiple threats by members of Fuerza Republicana.
"It is a complaint that still has no trial or date," says Guerrero.
However,
Bussi would seem to go as a candidate for governor with the national support of Javier Milei.
José Alperovich, prosecuted for sexual abuse.
José "El Mellizo" Orellana, who since 1991 has rotated the mayorship of Famaillá in Tucumán with his brother -without ceasing to hold other positions as an official during the period in which he is not mayor-, was convicted of sexual abuse in 2022. For his appeal, the conviction has not yet been finalized and this Orellana twin would go as a candidate for legislator on this year's lists.
“Is this the best that political parties have to offer us?”
Guerrero wonders.
José "El Mellizo" Orellana, convicted of sexual abuse in Congress.
“We do not intend to promote escraches, but rather that people can make the corresponding complaints in the Justice and in their own parties.
Political parties have to suspend these candidacies until the procedural situation is resolved because they are serious crimes, of aggression against the integrity of another person.
We do not want punitiveness or breaking the law, but rather that the political parties take charge of their responsibility," affirm the activists.
"Do you know what it is for a victim to see
the city papered with the face of his attacker
, whom he has denounced, but remains unpunished and powerful?", they sentence.
MG
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