The political propaganda of the Frente de Todos is overwhelming in Tucumán, with the images of Juan Manzur and Osvaldo Jaldo in every corner of the province. It is that the Tucuman governor is the campaign manager of the candidacy of his vice and plans to project himself again at the national level if he gets a victory for Jaldo this Sunday in the provincial elections.
Manzur agreed that his deputy governor Jaldo will succeed him in the provincial administration, accompanied by his Interior Minister, Miguel Acevedo, while he takes care of positioning himself as an eventual candidate for vice president of Sergio Massa or Wado de Pedro, representing the league of Peronist governors.
"He has not come down from his national dream," a source close to the Tucuman governor told Clarín.
"We will win by a double-digit difference," Manzur said.
The main polls highlight that the Frente de Todos is most likely to win this Sunday's elections, especially because of the weight of the provincial apparatus and that "they wired the province so that no national official comes in the last three months," said a political analyst who closely follows these elections, in Tucuman territory.
Posters of Rossana Chahla, Osvaldo Jaldo, Miguel Acevedo and Juan Manzur, in the streets of San Miguel de Tucumán. Photo: Rafael Mario Quinteros.
"It seemed better not to transfer the national problem to our provincial reality, although later officials and national leaders come on Sunday to celebrate if we win and on Monday President Alberto Fernández can come, as an institutional issue, as he did in other provinces where Peronism won," another Peronist leader from Tucumán told Clarín.
Manzur resorted to patronage methods, which went as far as the payment of a bonus of $ 20,000 this week for all public employees in the province, a mechanism copied by the candidate of Together for Change in San Miguel de Tucumán, which generated long queues in the banks to collect that subsidy that they granted only once.
The opposition of Together for Change tries to give the blow in Tucumán, with the candidacy for governor of the radical deputy Roberto Sánchez, former mayor of the city of Concepción; while Manzur seeks a comfortable victory for Jaldo, which allows him to project himself again at the national level and recover the prominence he had when he was chief of staff of Alberto Fernández, with the agreement of Vice President Cristina Kirchner and the support of the league of Peronist governors.
Together for Change and Milei measure forces
The electoral system adds a dose of complexity to the result of the Tucumán elections, since voting is done with a coupling system that favors the candidate who adds more lists in the dark room. The current vice governor Jaldo has 61 couplings, the mayor Roberto Sánchez (JxC) has 18 and the rest of the candidates of the other five parties competing for the governorship go with a single ticket.
From Together for Change they explained to Clarín that all their lists have the same candidates for governor, vice governor and mayors, but each coupling carries its own candidates for provincial legislators and councilors. "It is the only way to compete, as long as this system is maintained," they clarified.
Beatriz Ávila, Roberto Sánchez, Germán Alfaro and Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, at the closing of the campaign of Together for Change. Photo Twitter.
There is a strong bid in the gubernatorial elections, but also in the municipal administrations, since the Frente de Todos bets on winning the capital, while JxC seeks to give the blow in smaller towns, such as Alberdi and Tafí Viejo.
San Miguel is governed by the candidate for vice governor of Together for Change, Germán Alfaro, where the candidate to succeed him is his wife, national senator Beatriz Ávila, who competes with national deputy Rossana Chahla (FdT).
In Fuerza Republicana they bet on capitalizing on the effect of their national leader Javier Milei, although they recognize the wear and tear caused by such a long electoral campaign, since not having the management of any intendancy or the provincial governorship, they were left with scarce resources in these last four weeks of the campaign.
It is that the Supreme Court suspended the elections that were going to be held on May 14, a few days before their realization, by granting the precautionary measure requested by the opposition against Governor Manzur, so that he does not go from candidate to vice of Jaldo, since he did not respect the alternation established in the provincial Constitution.
"That suspension was a bucket of cold water, because the campaign became too long and we did not have the economic resources to face it," said Republican Force, Ricardo Bussi's group that is associated nationally with the libertarians of Milei.
Those who do not want Bussi pointed out that Milei was in Tucumán a few days before the Court suspended the elections, "but then he did not come anymore."
Javier Milei with Ricardo Bussi, candidate for governor of Tucumán for Fuerza Republicana.
In that visit that Milei made in early May, a strong controversy was generated because the newspaper La Gaceta, of Tucumán, reported that it decided to cancel an interview with the presidential candidate after the organizers put as a condition "that he could not be asked questions about issues such as carrying weapons and sale of organs and children." published La Gaceta in an editorial.
Close to Milei they distanced themselves from the requests for restrictions in the questions so that they could interview him in Tucumán. And they assured that this was a decision of Ricardo Bussi's advisers, who organized the interview with La Gaceta.
On the other hand, during the last week most of its national leaders, such as Mauricio Macri, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, Patricia Bullrich, Gerardo Morales, José Luis Espert and María Eugenia Vidal, among others, were in Tucumán supporting the provincial candidates of Together for Change.
At the closing ceremony of the campaign of the provincial formula of Together for Change, which was held in San Miguel de Tucumán, recorded messages from Bullrich and Morales were passed. But the only national leader who was there and closed the event, before more than 4,000 people, was the head of the Buenos Aires Government, Rodríguez Larreta, who assured that he will take care of Tucumán "from day one" if he wins the presidential elections.
Tucumán (special envoy).
