The 'warning vote' and the coin in the air

Fabian Bosoer

09/17/2021 11:22 AM

• Clarín.com

• Opinion

Updated 09/17/2021 11:47 AM

In the Government House there were initial reflections to admit the electoral defeat and look at what happened without covering veils, self-justifying stories and denial of reality.

The President was clear on Sunday night: “Obviously we have not done something well, so that people do not accompany us.

All of us here are listening.

We learn from mistakes

”.

The vice president, next to him, watched without nodding, with a gesture of indisputable disgust. In a few days she herself was in charge of making public her deep disagreements and her fury. Since Monday, the storm has raged between them. It was known that in his coalition or armed, there are serious disagreements about that "change of course" that these days the Christian wing demanded, suddenly adopting

a furious opposition speech

.

The contradiction is in the very nature of the Frente de Todos, as described by

Roy Hora and Pablo Gerchunoff

in their book "The coin in the air" (Siglo XXI, p.332 / 333): (Cristina and Alberto) mutually, but they do not start from the same point or advance in the same direction ... (and) the vector that results from these forces is ambiguity, lack of sharpness. Asking for a clear direction from a government of these characteristics, as we often claim, is asking for the impossible ”.

It was a strong message from the polls in these STEP.

Democracy, in its electoral dimension,

does its corrective, guiding, virtuous work

.

And the results of this recreation of the popular will expressed through the vote can surprise - as they did - rulers and opponents, losers and winners, pollsters and analysts, and even the voters themselves.

The Government and the FdT were

the main architects of these results and the surprise they brought

.

They reaped what they sowed.

By action and omission, voluntarily and involuntarily.

They did not want the PASSES to serve to open up internal competition.

They preferred unique, handpicked lists.

And make the PASO a referendum on its management.

They intended to show an FdT as a center of gravity, with a divided opposition revolving around it.

So it was: they discouraged participation, encouraged the formation of a spontaneous opposition coalition and lost the referendum incontestably.

What does it mean, then, to "learn from mistakes"?

Here is the heart of the matter.

This is the Shakespearean dilemma that the President once again has in his hands, as the depositary of the ultimate political decisions.

On Monday I had seven weeks to unveil it. The architect of the ruling coalition accelerated the times and burned the ships with her letter of Thursday, and opened the curtain of a new and unexpected scene of internal dispute at the top,

between the formal power of the President and the real power of the Vice

. The bicephaly of power of vice-presidentialism no longer holds. The coin, once again, is in the air ...