Maria Eugenia Estenssoro
09/15/2021 8:44 PM
Clarín.com
Opinion
Updated 09/15/2021 8:44 PM
It was 9 o'clock on Sunday night when I left the Saavedra Lamas Institute in Isidro Casanova, part of La Matanza.
There I was a table prosecutor with a group of volunteers from Together for Change.
While I waited in the car for my son Gaspar to finish counting the votes and turn in his forms, I turned on the radio to listen to the news.
There was still no official data.
If I was guided by the results of table 768 that I audited, I could not be very optimistic.
The Front of All obtained 106 votes;
the Alianza Juntos, joined by Santilli and Manes, 48;
and the rest of the lists much less.
However, she was happy.
He had felt a climate, a social reality, very different from the verbal pack and the gestural vulgarity with which they strut, insult and defame politicians, journalists and celebrities in the media and networks on a daily basis.
The Argentina that I saw in that school, on a voting day, in the middle of the pandemic, in the middle of the worst economic crisis in our history, with half of the population submerged in excruciating poverty, with most of the children not attending classes, young people without a future and adults without hope, it was a much better Argentina.
A community of kind and caring people.
Citizens willing to participate civically and collaborate so that the election was as orderly and peaceful as possible.
Miguel, the president of my table, had gone to vote at 8.30 in the morning because his 25-year-old son needed the car to go to work.
"Is there someone from table 768?" They asked, just as he arrived at the Saavedra Lamas Institute.
"Yes, me," he replied, without imagining that he would stay there until 10 at night as chairman of the table, because the person drawn had failed.
Without any prior training, he had to learn as he went.
Miguel was diligent and neat, perhaps working as a garment cutter for the garment industry.
Marcela, the table prosecutor of the Frente de Todos, was already there when I arrived.
Between the three of us we supported each other so that everything worked.
If we did not know something, the attorneys general and the gendarmes assisted the three of us indistinctly, without asking which "side" each one was on.
No one was with the knife between their teeth.
On the contrary.
No ballots were stolen.
The voters were cordial, asking for please and saying goodbye thanking.
In the 20 years that I have participated in elections as a candidate or prosecutor in the city and province of Buenos Aires, I believe that this was the best organized election with the least hysteria and mistrust.
Could it be because we were aware of the fragility of society, the harshness of everyday life, the shared pain?
Is it because in reality we all, beyond our ideologies, want to live in peace, without so much politicking?
Argentines are better than politicians and journalists usually say. Not even the poor can be bought with plans, money and deceptions; not even the middle classes and the rich are so callous and miserable. We Argentines have more values and ideals than what we crush daily in the precarious public debate of the red circle that lately looks very black. On Sunday, Argentine society, which does not appear in the journalistic chronicles, or in party strategies, or in opinion polls, expressed itself with strength and dignity, not only with anger. That is the most relevant data.
When we started counting the votes, some partisan prosecutors wanted to speed up the recount - which is so precarious and primitive! - by opening all the envelopes. I said that it seemed inappropriate to me because it was going to be difficult to control. The president agreed that only he and another prosecutor would count the ballots, while a young woman with more experience was writing down the results on the sheet of paper that was pasted on the blackboard. No one tried to cheat, we were all able to recount and make sure the numbers were correct.
I took photos of all the forms, papers and duplicates that must be completed from the moment each vote is cast until the ballot box is closed so that we can convince ourselves once and for all that we have to go beyond this manual system of the 19th century, with multiple party ballots by volunteer prosecutors and table authorities chosen at random, to a single ballot system in charge of trained public officials, with manual and digital counting.
It is a miracle that the current system works.
In reality, it works just like schools, hospitals and so many things, because despite everything we say and curse ourselves, Argentines are still a society mainly of good, honest people, who want to live in democracy and in peace.
At 9:45 p.m. Gaspar and I were going home on the highway.
The radio reported that the Government was beginning to broadcast the first results of the election through different platforms and digital applications.
He did not hide data or remain highlighting for hours the few districts where he was victorious.
In less than an hour we learned that the government defeat was crushing in almost the entire country.
Even in the province of Buenos Aires.
In many ways, Sunday's was an impeccable choice.
In which all of us, the ruling party and the opposition, were surprised and discovered that Argentines are and can be better, much better.
As a famous phrase that I attributed to Winston Churchill but which is from a New York writer says: "When all is lost, there is still the future."
That future was reborn on Sunday and we have to take care of it.
María Eugenia Estenssoro is a journalist and former national senator.
