08/06/2021 21:03
Clarín.com
Opinion
Updated 08/06/2021 21:03
In her essay "The charm of the unknown, the 1916 presidential campaign in Argentina according to illustrated magazines," Silvana Palermo recalls the cover of Caras y Caretas: a carnival mask with a presidential sash and a baton.
The epigraph said "The mask that you see here aroused deep interest, that it is not known who it is and it has teased everyone".
That political world was dominated by radicals and conservatives, and progressive socialists and democrats were on the rise.
Until 1912 - which is considered
the first "democratic" election in the country
- the vote was male and sung; the most voted list was left with all the seats and the opposition almost without any representation. Around 1900 each citizen voted for a single candidate and not for a list. The then Minister Joaquín V. González proposed the secret vote but Carlos Pellegrini opposed it in Congress, stating that "the secret vote was for conscientious men, not for the masses who voted according to their sympathies."
In 1905 the vote by voice was suppressed, which was not secret, but was written
: with few literate people, only a minority voted.
On June 12, 1910, Roque Saenz Peña was in Europe when he was elected president.
Upon arrival, he met with the head of the opposition, Hipólito Yrigoyen, who promised to abandon the revolutionary path to take power, and Sáenz Peña, for his part, to sanction the emblematic electoral law.
There the campaigns began with rallies, the installation of committees and clubs dedicated exclusively to the electoral campaign and the controls over the State apparatus:
those who had them reinforced their ability to win the elections
.
To quote Guillermo O'Donnell, today we live in a “low intensity democracy”: the vote is no longer sung but the voters are driven away, the pollsters appear as the new ballot boxes and the politicians decide power under the influence of their data, and the campaign consists of
a month of media blitz
. From this Saturday there will be 2,160 seconds per day of spots on each channel and each radio in the country.
The "electoral apparatus" -state only- costs the State a global amount of $ 654 million, just for campaign contributions.
For candidates, the degree of knowledge is essential (no one can vote for someone they don't know): in the case of Diego Santilli, it is around 60%, which means that, in a very short time, he must install his image.
The publicist is Carlos Pérez, from the BBDO agency, and the concept of the first days is controversial: "I listen to you," Santilli will say.
Is it enough to listen and not give solutions?
Diego Santilli, with Martiniano Molina and Graciela Ocaña in Quilmes.
"This came out of a focus group, people are tired of being told what to do," they
explain to
Clarín
in the environment of the candidate.
The topics for “phase two” will be work, safety and education. Horacio Rodriguez Larreta will accompany you to the "Colo" at least twice a week in the suburbs. The campaign manager is Néstor Grindetti, mayor of Lanús. Radicalism does not worry them:
"La Plata and Mar del Plata, two cities governed by the PRO, have the same population as all the municipalities of the UCR together," they
explain.
Facundo Manes is a great question mark.
For some it is Gardiner, that character of Peter Sellers and for others a kind of messianic: "
I have come to heal Argentina" he
said in these same pages a few days ago.
He has little sense of humor and you
can see his annoyance in the political mud
, to which he is not used at all.
His greatest enemy is at home and it is Elisa Carrió who described him as a "mythomaniac".
“Now they challenge me, later they will thank me”
, Lilita prophesies.
Manes' slogan is “Take the step”.
"It is a mixture of sports brand advertising and evangelical pastor"
, defines a communication specialist.
Facundo Manes, on his way through Mar del Plata.
Today Manes is concerned about financing - there was support that never came - and he campaigns in the PASO but with a presidential tone.
"If I were to lose my cell phone, with what these days of closing lists were, we will all go to prison,"
jokes one of the officials with the greatest power within the national government.
The Frente de Todos believes that it can unbalance the election in the Province of Buenos Aires by
six points in its favor
and recognizes - privately - that its list is not competitive:
"We beat them with the badge," they
say.
Victoria Tolosa Paz is a kind of
nightstand
Cristina:
superb and dapper but without her own handwriting.
Tour the Province with an entourage of the press, networks, hairdresser, coach and makeup artist.
Alberto Fernández decided to put it
“because it works well on TV”
, that's how sophisticated everything is.
In the Province they say they have 30% of "sure vote", 12% of "probable vote" and 7% of "possible vote".
Santiago Cafiero, Victoria Tolosa Paz and Mariano Cascallares in the Almirante Brown Industrial Park.
The Manual de Todos, a practical guide for candidates of the ruling party written by Juan Courel, the former Secretary of Communication of Daniel Scioli, recommends:
-Talk about health, State, vaccines, care, expansion of rights, science, industry, etc.
-Don't talk about justice, corruption, international politics.
-Talk about the future to empathize and not be aggressive.
The campaign slogan is "The life we want."
In the PRO they say
“it looks like ours”
.
Look also
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With an impersonator of Cristina Kirchner and a spot full of insults, Florencio Randazzo launched his campaign