OPINION | Argentine urns like Pandora's boxes

A woman casts her vote at a polling station during the PASO primary elections in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

(Credit: ALEJANDRO PAGNI / AFP / Getty Images)

Editor's note:

Claudio Fantini is a political scientist and journalist;

Professor in Political Science and International Relations at the 21st Century University;

Political analysis columnist for newspapers, magazines, radio and television channels in Argentina and Uruguay.

Author of the books "Chronicles of the end of the century," Gods of war "," Infallible and absolute "," The shadow of fanaticism, "The monarchical component", "The gravity of silence", "Abaddon" and "The tenue virtue".

The opinions expressed in this column are solely his own.

Read more opinion pieces at cnne.com/opinion.

(CNN Spanish) -

In a normal democracy, losing a midterm election is not a tragedy for the ruling force.

Governing without a parliamentary majority is an eventuality, not the end of the world.

The president of Argentina understood it that way.

That is why he was not willing to reverse in the legislative election the defeat suffered by the ruling party in the open, simultaneous and mandatory primaries (PASO), although money was injected into society in a shock of demagoguery.

Alberto Fernández knows that, although this irresponsible move can reverse the defeat into a draw or even a victory, it implies the risk of an inflationary outbreak that will shake the next two years of his government.

And the president's priority is to calmly move through the two years remaining to his term.

• OPINION |

  Before authoritarian characters like Daniel Ortega this is the only instrument

But the vice president seems to have another priority: to win the legislative elections this Sunday, so as not to lose the parliamentary majority.

In my opinion, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner cared about the two months that followed the PASO, and not the two years that began after the legislative election.

Why?

One possible answer is: because it needs to control Congress to impose judicial reforms that provide it with a shield against the processes for possible corruption that are advancing against it.

Furthermore, an electoral show of force is a political message that many judges and prosecutors read with fear or opportunism.

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In Argentina, the processes for complaints of corruption multiply and advance on the rulers when they weaken, but they shrink and recede when the rulers become stronger.

For this reason, attacking and humiliating the man she made president by anointing him as a candidate, the vice president imposed her power and her agenda after the defeat of the ruling party in the PASO.

In this way, what is at stake in the polls on Sunday is the possibility of a judicial shield that gives impunity to Cristina Kirchner and the Government will pay with the risk of an inflationary outbreak by averaging next year.

If the ruling party manages to retain control of Congress and hyperinflation breaks out in the coming months, Kirchnerism will be left with the letter of blaming Alberto Fernández for the economic collapse that may occur, and seeking the return of Cristina or whoever she postulates in the election presidential of 2023.

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If Kirchnerism managed, with its high-voltage demagogic shock, to resurrect from a lapidary defeat, the temptation to hegemonic power will once again gain strength.

If after the disappointing result of the PASO, due to the brutal impoverishment that has been accentuated in the last two years, and perpetrating a merciless lynching of the president's public image, whom he treated as a "worthless squat", Kirchnerism achieves recovering at the polls on Sunday, he will be tempted to raise the flag of "eternal Cristina" again and shout again "let's go for everything."

If the result repeats or deepens the official defeat in the PASO, other shadows would darken the political scene.

The possibility of a judicial shield and the construction of hegemonic power would be reduced for Kirchnerism.

And the fragility of the vice president raises disturbing unknowns.

How will the temperamental Cristina Kirchner digest this situation of vulnerability?

Will he blame the president again and subject him to another barrage of disqualifications?

If that happens, will Alberto Fernández turn the other cheek?

Or will he this time heed those close to him who have been recommending him for a long time to expel the ministers who respond to the vice president, build his own cabinet and govern based on non-Kirchnerist Peronism and occasional agreements with the opposition in Congress?

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This possibility, rejected by the head of state on previous occasions, cannot be ruled out if the election result is a debacle for the ruling party and the president is once again the target of public derision for Kirchnerism.

In the scenario of a new defeat that leaves them in the legislative minority, there is no set script or script. As it was seen after the PASO, some leading actors can be left at the mercy of their impulses. Feeling that he is moving towards a political climate and that his leadership may have entered an irreversible decline, perhaps detonates in Cristina Kirchner an explosive mixture of frustration and fear for her judicial future. The ruling Peronist coalition would be catatonic and could convulse. In that instance, what happens next will depend on Alberto Fernández recovering his old ability to achieve consensus, that non-Kirchnerist Peronism has a political back to sustain it and that moderate leaders are strengthened in the opposition and fulfill their proclaimed vocation of dialogue.

In the run-up to this crucial election, the dominant feeling is a concern: that the urns resemble Pandora's box.

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