As this election year dawns, factionalism and polarization persist, a very complicated drag of attitudes that broke out last year. Factionalism, in effect, is now raging in the two coalitions that are disputing power.
Candidates multiply without the emergence of unifying leaderships capable of arousing broad support.
For its part, polarization does not give up.
In our country, and in general in the world of democracies, outstanding leaderships supported by stable parties that, in past circumstances, led reconstruction processes after wars and dictatorships are declining.
This fusion of the democratic leadership with the political party that supports it now would be entering a twilight.
For this reason, occasional leadership proliferates, typical of a democracy of candidates that fights to succeed the democracy of parties.
These occasional leaders are rebellious (as we will see immediately) or, with more roots and experience, they are limited within the dominant coalitions because they do not manage to transcend beyond the borders of Together for Change or the Front of All;
Therefore, it is up to them to oscillate between the roles of great voter, which is the same as designating candidates without competition, attempting their own candidacy with the risk that this involves, trying to tip the balance, or acting as a neutral arbitrator.
Such are the dilemmas of Cristina Fernández and Mauricio Macri.
In turn, we do not stop talking about polarization.
It is a concept that invades the analyzes and demands, for its better understanding, a set of adjectives.
Each one has their own (for a few years mine has qualified as an exclusive polarization).
These phenomena are repeated: Kirchnerism and its counterparts in the opposition activate a polarizing tradition that, in the last century, has had an abundant harvest of grievances and repression.
As can be deduced from its meaning, the polarization is binary and a matrix of antinomies.
Thanks to a rustic montage, raising a dialectic without nuances, Kirchnerism condemns the destructive plan of macrismo;
On the opposite sidewalk, they respond with the same ammunition, signaling their disaster.
Catastrophic agonist competition.
What happens, however, if a third party in discord bursts into this scenography of antagonism, trying to mark the design of another polarization?
Given the factionalism in the two great coalitions, which leads to a fight at the political apex while society suffers the scourges of uncertainty and disenchantment, it is not surprising that this "third party" has emerged, willing to manifest a global response to the so-called caste. policy.
This resounding presence in the electoral field seeks to encompass and increase a historical band that, even accepting the gross errors in the polls, oscillates between 17% and 20% of voting intentions.
In this way, tercerismo would resume some features of the imperfect bipartisanship of the first two decades of our democracy with new and old seasonings, among them angry protest and rebellion together with the primitive recreation of an "ethics of conviction" that does not pay attention to to the consequences of casting the vote.
That catapult of reproaches is enough to attract followers.
For the rest, the hegemonic tradition also does its thing with these leaderships: exalted personalism, null horizontality between leaders and directed;
In short, the 21st century version of the old plot of family governments.
It turns out that from the couples that command presidencies and governorships we have gone on to lead in the form of a bunker of brothers and sisters.
The spread of this kind of primary groups, based on mistrust of others, is a symptom of the decline of the frank and open associative spirit that should sustain our political culture.
This picture of situation has confusing brush strokes.
The lines of speeches and actions are excessively intertwined, reality is more opaque, people look at this mess with indifference.
Should we give in to this pile of negative evidence?
Not so much.
Democracy, in its electoral dimension and in all the liberties that this involves, has not succumbed, and the institutions, no matter how many defects they have, can open the way to channel those passions.
That is why today the primary, open and mandatory elections stand out —PASO— conceived, precisely, to settle leaderships within parties and coalitions.
Depending on how you look at them, the PASO serve as a filter in the presence of many candidates, such as in Together for Change, or as a mere excuse to apply the criteria of the great voter and do without them.
In this case, they serve as a survey to explore support and ratify the selected candidates.
Examples of this: the presidential candidacies put together by Cristina Fernández in 2015 and 2019 (two failures due to the defeat inflicted in 2015 and the poor government management of this last three-year period) to which is added the offer of Javier Milei, apparently a candidate unique and exclusive.
Things get complicated in the area of Together for Change.
In it, the PASO are decisive due to the number of suitors and the rigid design of this primary law that requires presenting closed formulas for president and vice president.
The opposite is the case in the United States and Uruguay where only candidates for president participate in the primaries and, once the competition is resolved, the chosen candidate proposes to the convention of his party who will accompany him.
Here, on the contrary, the rigidity of the system demands retracing the path of 2015, where closed formulas competed in Together for Change, and exploring the more flexible route of the combined formulas between the parties that make up the coalition: a possible way to overcome obstacles and, at the same time, an opportunity to gradually outline the governance of a center diagonal capable of cushioning the factionalism and polarization that continue to overwhelm us.
Natalio R. Botana is a political scientist and historian. Emeritus Professor at Torcuato Di Tella University.
