Peronism loses one of its provincial strongholds in Argentina

Sergio Uñac, governor of San Juan Province, Argentina, in June 2023.COURTESY

The small province of San Juan, on Argentina's central-western border, has put an end to 20 years of Peronist rule. The election of its new governor lasted almost a month. San Juan had scheduled elections for May 14, but the Supreme Court suspended them four days earlier in response to an opposition request. The parties opposed to Peronism denounced that the current governor, Sergio Uñac, had reached the term limit, since he sought to run for re-election after having alternated as governor and vice governor since 2011. The Supreme Court listened. Uñac was unable to run, instead it was his brother, and Together for Change won a close election. This Sunday, its candidate, the national deputy Marcelo Orrego, won with 51% of the votes.

It is the second blow that Peronism receives in the provincial elections while the country awaits the general elections next October. On March 11, the small province of San Luis, in the center of the country, ousted from power the Rodríguez Saá brothers, who alternated in power since 1983. The center-right alliance of Together for Change thus adds six provinces under its power: in addition to San Juan and San Luis, it renewed its power in Jujuy, maintained that of Corrientes, and governs until the end of the year in Mendoza and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, where its candidates are the strongest. Peronism maintains power in 13 provinces, with six of them still in play. So far this year, 13 of Argentina's 24 provinces have elected new governors. Another nine will do so between now and October and two, those of Corrientes and Santiago del Estero, will renew their authorities in 2025.

San Juan elected governor three weeks after the elections in which it renewed its Legislature and defined the new mayors of its 19 municipalities. The unfolding of its elections ended up complicating Peronism: its candidates for governor lost this Sunday, but the party maintained its majority in the local congress and won the mayorships of 15 of the 19 communes on May 14.

The Supreme Court's challenge of Governor Sergio Uñac as a candidate had little impact when it came to seeking blame. In early May, when three of his magistrates voted to suspend provincial elections, President Alberto Fernández denounced the decision as leaving "democracy hostage to a group of judges." Then, he said that he would add the precedent to the political trial that government legislators maintain against the Court for "unusual jurisprudential interpretations that allow the Judicial Branch to interfere in the decisions of the National Congress." Peronism took Uñac's victory in the province for granted, and the impeachment escalated the war between the court and the Peronist government. The trial commission against the Court is in session again this week, and President Fernández has limited himself to congratulating Sunday's winner, Marcelo Orrego.

The new governor takes office with a vengeance: in 2019 he had lost the election to Sergio Uñac by almost 20 points. National deputy since that same year for a small local party united to the opposition of Together for Change, he was mayor of Santa Lucía, a municipality in the south of his province, between 2011 and 2019. "We must recognize that there is a 20-year process of Peronism that we will have to reconsider and restructure," said the governor, Sergio Uñac, in acknowledging defeat. His brother Rubén reached just 17% of the votes and, together with former governor José Luis Gioja, who ran on the second Peronist list, were seven points behind Together for Change, with 44% of the votes together.

"More than unseating Peronism, what has been superseded is Kirchnerism," Orrego said in a radio interview celebrating his victory on Monday. Kirchnerism, the majority wing of Peronism that responds to the national leadership of current Vice President Cristina Kirchner, makes accounts after the defeat in San Juan. Both that coup and the one in St. Louis threaten his flimsy group of national senators, which will be renewed in October during the general elections. Peronism has 31 votes and three fixed allies among the 74 seats, three short of a majority of its own. The poor results in the local elections of provinces that he considered won set off the alarms: in the Senate the laws are approved, but magistrates are also put in and removed.

Subscribe here to the newsletter of EL PAÍS América and receive all the informative keys of the current situation of the region.