The opposition of Together for Change will define this Sunday the candidate for governor in La Pampa, in the first internal election of the 2023 electoral calendar. The election pits the pre-candidates the national deputy
Martín Berhongaray
of the UCR and the national deputy
Martín Maquieyra
of the PRO.
The winner of the internal contest
will face Governor Sergio Ziliotto on May 14
, who is up for re-election.
The election is open, compulsory and simultaneous internal.
But it is not obligatory for the citizens but for the parties that have to define candidacies:
if there is only one list
, they should not appear in this instance.
A register of 238,232 voters will participate in the election.
It is made up of members of the UCR, the PRO and other coalition parties, as well as independents.
Both the radical Berhongaray (son of the Alfonsinista leader Antonio Pacheco Berhongaray) and Maquieyra received the support of the national leaders of both parties.
While radical Berhongaray is aligned in Radical Evolution, Maquieyra leaned on Horacio Rodríguez Larreta in the spectrum of the macrista force.
But former president Mauricio Macri himself, Patricia Bullrich and María Eugenia Vidal participated in the Pampean campaign.
In the two national bunkers, although it is not a province with an electorate of great numerical weight, the fight acquires relevance for being the first on the electoral calendar.
“I always look for consensus.
Solutions cannot be reached with the crack”, said
Martín Berhongaray
.
“I want to end 40 years of the same government.
There is poverty and indigence, in a province that has everything”, affirms Martín Maquieyra.
Berhongaray assumed the candidacy in a convulsed closing of the list in the UCR, when the national senator Daniel Kroneberger (who had installed his figure a year before)
withdrew the application
.
He was so confused that he even changed the running mate: the radical is accompanied by Patricia Testa, a kindergarten teacher and former provincial deputy for General Pico.
But the internship in radicalism never ends: former national senator Juan Carlos Marino (several times a candidate for governor)
announced that he would not participate in the internship
.
Martín Maquieyra
studied Political Science at the UCA.
His last name jumped into politics when his brother asked President Cristina Kirchner a public question at Harvard University.
He took over as a national deputy in 2016 when
Carlos Mac Allister resigned from the bench to go to the Sports Secretariat
.
After him, Maquieyra followed his own path, achieving two re-elections in 2017 and 2021.
In addition, Together for Change will define the candidacies for mayor of Santa Rosa and General Pico.
In the Pampas capital (governed by Mayor Luciano di Nápoli, from La Cámpora) the former mayor Francisco Torroba (UCR), the macrista Martín Ardohain and the radical Federico “Colo” Roitman (called List K, “Podemos”) face off for a minority sector of radicalism.
The Santa Rosa register is of 71,586 voters.
In Pico there will be four pre-candidates in Together for Change.
Adriana García (PRO), Juan Pablo Vieta (UCR), Juan Carlos Passo (former national senator, aligned with Margarita Stolbizer's GEN) and Jorge Amato (UCR).
They all pointed to the enormous expense of the municipality of Piquense: "there are 63 officials, and they charge over 500,000 pesos," said Juan Pablo Vietta, a criticism that was repeated by the other pre-candidates.
In Pico the register is 39,800 voters.
Together for change, it will go internally in three other towns: Ingeniero Luiggi, 25 de Mayo and Miguel Cané.
In five towns (out of a total of 89), the Justicialista Party will go internal.