Walter schmidt
09/06/2021 6:00 AM
Clarín.com
Opinion
Updated 09/06/2021 6:00 AM
The Open, Simultaneous and Obligatory Primaries (PASO), an Argentine invention not exportable since there is no record of something similar in other parts of the world, will have
a relevance
next Sunday
never seen
in its decade of existence: they will begin the path that will define the political future of the President and of who, for now, is his main opposition rival.
Obviously, it will only be the legislative election that will define the performance of the Frente de Todos and Juntos por el Cambio, with its respective winners and losers.
But for both Alberto Fernández and Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, the numbers they obtain in the PASO will define the panorama they will have to face on the night of November 14.
According to the experience of the five choices
held primaries (2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019),
the vote of Kirchnerism does not usually vary much between the PASO and the election
.
In fact, it has grown by a maximum of
4 points
and it was in 2011 when Cristina Kirchner swept her re-election, obtaining 54% of the votes.
But on other occasions it has decreased.
The case of the opposition is different, with examples such as Sergio Massa when he headed the Renovador Front in 2013 or Esteban Bullrich of the PRO in the 2017 legislative elections, which between the PASO and the election
increased 10 and 8 points
, respectively.
It is the logic of a 60-40 relationship that allows any opposition to grow more.
Other
three factors
are pushed up to the antikirchnerismo.
In the first place, because of the pandemic effect and the relative importance that the electorate gives to the PASO, unlike the election, there are
fewer
opposition
voters
who go to the polls.
On the other hand, the Peronist voter tends to be more vehement in this regard.
The second component is that
in the primaries the blank vote is counted but not in the election
, and in the previous experiences the majority ended up being votes for Together for Change.
In fact, in the 2017 elections, the blank vote was 3 points at the national level.
And the third variable is that in the election, the main force of the opposition has always absorbed part of the votes that
the smaller parties
added in the PASO, because the opposition electorate warns that the bid against Kirchnerism is close, so a part he ends up "correcting" his vote and giving it to the majority opposition force.
It is in this context that Alberto Fernández, whose image has notably declined in a year, puts his political future on the table for the first time. He and Kirchnerism need that both at the national level and in the province of Buenos Aires the advantage in the PASO with respect to Cambiemos, at least,
is close to double digits
. Otherwise, a shorter distance will activate those three factors and the ruling party for November 14 could be very complicated.
"We hope for
a victory as a political symbol of strength
, to be able to show that a new cycle is opening from Monday to November 14, where Alberto and the government's agenda will be central," they
say in the Casa Rosada. Close to the president they warn that this will allow him to maintain his quota of power within the ruling coalition. Not so, if the outcome is a defeat, where the most likely scenario is a renewal of the cabinet and management, imposed by the Instituto Patria.
They trust that the economic and consumption recovery that is registered -beyond that when comparing the indices with previous years they are still well below the pre-pandemic context- added to the percentage of people who by November will already have the two doses against Covid, operate in favor of the candidates of the FdT.
"Let's face it, let's go out and defend our candidates because we have good things to show,"
was the line that Fernández himself lowered to his ministers, which is why several were seen touring the province of Buenos Aires. In the case of Matías Lammens from Tourism, the president asked him to visit the interior. On Thursday he was in Córdoba with Carlos Caserio, on Saturday in Chubut with Carlos Linares and this week he will travel to Nequén to accompany Tanya Bertoldi. He brought them all
two pieces of news
that the Government considers important for the interior in terms of tourism. The return of graduate trips, of interest to Córdoba and Chubut, and
the next reopening of the borders
.
In an enthusiasm that can turn out to be excessive if the electoral result is a setback, some officials seek to outline the political agenda for the day after and insist on the possibility of
starting a “smart conversation” with the opposition
, avoiding the gap.
Any agreement?
There is nothing yet.
Publicly, María Eugenia Vidal herself was in charge of rejecting it because it was a version in the middle of an electoral bid.
"This continues to be a plebiscite for Alberto's management," they
repeat, as it was several months ago, in the cabinet.
It happens that many things happened in the middle and
some scandals
.
A photograph of Alberto Fernández with the first lady Fabiola Yañez and a group of friends in Quinta de Olivos during the strict quarantine last year generated a strong controversy and a group of deputies from Juntos por el Cambio will present a request for impeachment against President.
A few kilometers from the Casa Rosada, in another headquarters, that of Uspallata of the Buenos Aires government, the larretismo is overturned 24 x 7 to the campaign and to support Vidal and Diego Santilli. The
strategy Larreta
is to generate a space that has enough alternatives to get the most votes possible. With a Vidal who, they say,
"found the tone in the campaign and is solid", they
estimate that he should beat Kirchnerista Leandro Santoro without problems, regardless of what Ricardo López Murphy adds, who has been growing. They project that Vidal, López Murphy and the Rubinstein list will reach between 40 and 45% of the votes.
The objective that the larretismo has set for these elections is to
replicate the 2017 election in which Cambiemos got 51% of the votes
.
In 2019 they reached the record of 61 points, but they were elections to Head of Government and they had just added Martín Lousteau to the space.
In the City they discount that with a greater turnout of voters at the election compared to what they expect in the PASO, plus the blank vote in favor and polarization, it will be enough to meet the percentage achieved four years ago.
Next Sunday night, Alberto Fernández will need to show an advantageous number of votes to
avoid the internal pressure
of Christianity and begin to rebuild his image.
Rodríguez Larreta will seek for Santilli to win the internship well against the radical Facundo Manes and for Vidal to do the same, with authority, in the City.
Even after the primaries, the ambitions of Fernández and Larreta could remain standing until November 14.
But on that day, the day of the true election,
the victorious seat can only be occupied by one of them
.
While the other, must watch the festivities, head down, from the side of the spectators.