After 18, the vote closed in the city of Córdoba that defines the future political map of the province and that could have national impact. From the ruling United We Do for Córdoba and the opposition of Together for Change expected a close election. The Electoral Justice defined that the first data will be known when 40% of the voters are loaded or at 21:30 p.m., whichever comes first. Turnout, which was the focus of controversy, was again low.
The candidate for mayor of the local government, Daniel Passerini, waited for the counting of votes in his bunker at the Quorum hotel, while circulating exit polls with an advantage of between 1.5 and 4.5 points. The team of the radical Rodrigo De Loredo, meanwhile, will do the same at the Alto Botánico event center, with polls that gave an advantage to the national deputy of between 4 and 5 points and awaited the arrival of the main national referents of JxC.
"Stick and stick". In the two main forces that seek to stay with the intendancy of the Cordovan capital predicted a tight end and felt winners in the previous one. The election day in the city started with little movement, between the cold that was more noticeable by the high temperatures on Saturday, the end of the local winter holidays and the denunciations of the opposition that accuses the ruling party and the electoral board of the City of stimulating absenteeism to benefit the dolphin of the outgoing mayor and governor-elect Martín Llaryora.
The two candidates cast their votes early. The current vice mayor Passerini, of Unidos Hacemos Córdoba, did so after 11 at the German School, in the north of the city while his opponent, the radical De Loredo, voted half an hour later, at the Almafuerte school, located in the south of the capital. There were some moments of tension when an electoral prosecutor prevented a lectern – which included the slogan Let's make Córdoba the N1 – from being placed so that the radical deputy could speak to the press after casting his vote.
Official. Daniel Passerini, casting his vote. Photo: La Voz
With an eventual victory, Passerini intends to support the agonizing triumph of Llaryora at the provincial level a month ago, when he defeated Luis Juez by just over 3 points. Paradoxically, that result was built fundamentally in this city, with a difference of 50,<> votes and a register of one million one hundred thousand voters. After winning the election, Llaryora took charge of Passerini's campaign.
The provincial government was betting on the deployment of its territorial power to add voters in the neighborhoods where they won on June 25. That is why, also, in JxC they denounce a "clientelist operation never seen" and point against the request and the SMS of the electoral board of the city, in charge of the organization of the elections, which warned that there will be no sanctions for those who do not vote, a way to discourage voting.
That message motivated a denunciation of Juan Negri, head of De Loredo's campaign and even the repudiation of Mauricio Macri, who called to vote for the formula of the former head of Arsat in his government. "They look lost and try to discourage voting in Córdoba capital with tricky arguments. Do not listen, tomorrow go to vote calmly and freely for De Loredo, "tweeted the former president at the end of the night. Mario Negri joined the criticism.
Among the ranks of De Loredo, who is betting on making Córdoba a radical bastion again, they point out that the provincial and municipal elections are different. Passerini, at the time of voting, dissociated himself from the opposition's complaints. "We want people to come en masse to vote," he said.
In the same vein, Governor and presidential candidate Juan Schiaretti, who also cast his vote in this city, expressed himself with the red jacket he wears to each election. "The important thing is to ask them as governor and neighbor of the city to come and vote," said the provincial president, who accompanied Passerini and Llaryora at the closing of the campaign.
Passacaglia. Electoral climate in the capital of Córdoba. Photo: Fernando de la Orden
The intern in Together for Change
Whatever the outcome, in De Loredo's bunker await the two presidential candidates of Together for Change, Patricia Bullrich and Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, who seek to capitalize on a hypothetical triumph and give a show of unity in the middle of the permanent short circuits of the internal.
Martín Lousteau, Gerardo Morales and Maximiliano Pullaro will be other opposition figures who will visit the bunker of De Loredo, who campaigned with the two national candidates but municipalized his campaign and does not plan to issue on who is his favorite for the PASO.
Juan Schiaretti votes in the municipal election of Córdoba Photo: Fernando de la Orden
Before visiting the Mediterranean province, Bullrich again questioned Rodríguez Larreta for his flirtation with Schiaretti. "JxC was harmed by talking about incorporating it," he told Perfil. The similarities between both forces deepen the detail that Javier Pretto, former deputy and referent of the PRO in Córdoba is Passerini's running mate. The gravity of the separate complaints — which included alleged ties to drug trafficking — served to separate the waters in the country's most anti-Kirchner district.
In addition to the election to mayor and vice, 11 titular councilors, 10 alternates, 5 titular members and 5 alternates of the Court of Auditors will be elected with the Single Ballot system (paper).
Another 9 candidates signed up in the dispute in the capital of the most anti-Kirchner province in the country: Laura Vilches, of the Left Front; Miguel Bustos, of the Popular Party; Romina Giménez, of Unión Popular Federal; Humberto Spaccesi, de Córdoba de Todos; Jorge Scala, of the Democratic Party of Córdoba; Veronica Sikora, of La Libertad Primero; César Orgaz, from Encuentro Vecinal Córdoba; Juan Pablo Quinteros, from Somos Córdoba; and Eduardo González Olguín, of the Humanist Party.
This Sunday, in parallel, there will be another 20 municipal elections throughout the Mediterranean province, which in August, October and November could be decisive to tip the electoral balance at the national level.
Special Envoy to Córdoba