Ignacio Miri
09/08/2021 18:31
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 09/08/2021 18:43
On another of those occasions that are usually presented every four years, Argentines will vote motivated by
a call that will not appear written in any of the ballots
that will be displayed in the 101,500 dark rooms throughout the country. The number of people who will get up this Sunday
determined to support the legislative projects of a
particular
candidate
will be very small
, and the majority will dedicate themselves to evaluating
the performance of the
national
government
, and in some cases that of the provincial governments, or promoting
a change in shaping coalitions
or the place of their top leaders on the road to 2023.
For the Government, this situation is
a huge problem
.
The approval levels of Alberto Fernández's management have never been so low.
A
recent survey of reserved circulation
among important businessmen shows that the number of citizens who disapprove of the President's management is
double the number of those who support him
.
According to the same work - of 2,200 cases throughout the country that were completed on September 1 - Fernández has
levels of disapproval and approval almost identical
to those of Mauricio Macri in September and October 2019, when he had just lost the STEP in front of the president today.
This study also explains the drastic change in the social assessment of
the way the Government dealt with the pandemic
. The survey says that today 67% of Argentines believe that the main problem in relation to the disease is
the economic consequence it generated
, while only 22% say that their most pressing concern is getting infected.
The Government
may say that this situation stems from the success
it had in fighting the pandemic, but that phrase loses value if it is taken into account that
Argentina is very high on the list of countries with the highest number of deaths
per million from COVID. Some of that failure
understood
the Casa Rosada, if
the radical change it adopted in the policy for COVID
in 2021
is taken into account
.
The numbers from the Ministry of Health are eloquent enough to explain
the change in
official
policy
.
In the 9 months of 2020 that go from the beginning of the infections - on March 3, the first deceased was reported - and at the end of the year,
there were 45,568 deaths
from the pandemic.
In the first four months of the outbreak, 2,063 deaths were reported, while in the second semester there were 43,505 deaths.
In the 8 long months that ran from 2021,
there were 67,283 deaths
from the pandemic.
In other words: despite the fact that the death toll increased significantly, the Government
chose to make the movement of people more flexible
so that economic activity does not continue to collapse in the election year.
With those approval levels so low, the President faces a very delicate scenario within the ruling coalition itself.
Since his presentation as a candidate in 2019, Fernández and his intimates always maintained that his figure contributed two things to the
Frente de Todos
: the possibility of guaranteeing unity and an extra number of voters that Cristina Kirchner could not reach.
If the Frente de Todos gets fewer votes than in 2019 or even if it comes close to the votes that Cristina got in 2019 with Unidad Ciudadana, that additional that Fernández contributed will have disappeared.
In turn, if the result is even worse and the united Peronism
gets fewer votes throughout the country than Together for Change
, what is the point of maintaining that unity that no longer guarantees victory?
The opposition faces another challenge. In the first place, the results in the Federal Capital and the province of Buenos Aires will be the thermometer that will mark the first foray of Horacio Rodríguez Larreta in the national competition. If he does well, he can say that the 2019 election was lost by
Mauricio Macri
. If you do not achieve the result you expect, the road to 2023 in Together for Change will be disorganized again.
The result will also determine the consistency that the opposition blocs will have in the national congress and also in some of the provincial legislatures.
This happens because, as Juntos por el Cambio opened the competition to various lists in the PASO in the four most important provinces, the final payrolls will be made up in a more heterogeneous way, and there will be legislators who do not accept new leaderships or who have intentions of form other blocks.
Some of this can happen in the province of Buenos Aires, where the main task of Rodríguez Larreta, or
Diego Santilli
, should he win the internship, will be to keep together the block of Buenos Aires senators, which will become a mosaic of interests and chieftains who dream of leading different tribes.