Argentina: a crucial ballot for Latin America

by Atilio A. Boron

translation Cuba-Network in Defense of Humanity

The result of last Sunday’s election was a lightning bolt in a quiet day. A diffuse but penetrating social unrest had been installed in society with the general crisis of capitalism; the economic restrictions imposed on Argentina; the exhaustion of the boom of commodities and the tenacious media offensive to destabilize the government. It was therefore, merely a question of time that this situation would be expressed in the election process. It already HAPPENED (Simultaneous Open Primary elections) held on August 9 had sounded the alarm but was not listened or analyzed by officialism with the rigor needed in the circumstances. There was an attitude, to use a benevolent term called “negotiationist” through which self criticism and the possibility of introducing corrections were absent with the consequences we are today lamenting.

I will limit myself in this brief analysis to some of the factors most related to the strategy and tactics of political battles adopted by the Front for Victory these past months. I will leave for another moment a balance of the Kirchnerist experience in its integrality and multiple contradictions: universal assignation by child and business concentration; extension of the pension regime and tax regression; scientific and technological development (ARSAT I and II) etc. and extended concentration of soy bean agriculture; Latin Americanist policy; orientation of foreignization (foreign purchase of lands) of the economy. I have referred to this in the past and is not worthwhile repeating. I will return to the subject in future writings when it is not so urgent. For example, issues that refer to the temporal arc that transcend the current electoral situation such as the inept call to construct a political subject and make of “United and organized” a true plural and Frontist forces and not empty shells whose only mission was to support, without any efficient practices, the measures of the government. Or the amazing incapacity to prepare, after 12 years in government a leadership of change that may not by Daniel Scioli, a politician born from Menemism. Or the suicidal attitude followed in the past few months of disqualifying to the limits of the ridiculous one who, in the end, was the only candidate Kirchnerism had to confront the risky presidential succession. It other words, they lashed out a figure against who no form of offense and humiliations were reigned in, without seeing, in the blurring joy of the courtesans of power that was the only card they could play shortly later after shamefully latching on to it, like a burning nail, in a desperate attempt to save “the project”. The imagination of the readers can qualify this attitude.

Closer in time several errors of strategy were committed of incalculable projections: to begin, the decision not to support Martín Lousteau in the second round of voting for the presidency of the government of the city of Buenos Aires against Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, the dauphin, who now appears like the probable hangman of Kirchnerism. It they had acted in this manner, ignoring the absurd fundamentalism of Marcrism would have lost Buenos Aires and would have received a blow – if not mortal at least crushing – to the presidential aspirations of Mauricio Macri. The confusion of the FPV for which the last militant of the Casa Rosada participated was a blessing for the right wing allowing at least maintaining its power in Buenos Aires and save the future of its main political sword. Few cases of political blindness can equal this.

But the road of errors did not stop here. In an attempt to safeguard the ideological purity of the Kirchnerist formula and in face of the distrust of Daniel Scioli and his winding political trajectory had the sad idea of proposing as his running mate for the vice presidency Carlos Zannini. Deciding for the Legal and Technical secretary to the Presidency a “pure Kirchnerist” was adopted to appease the anxiety of their own but absolutely incapable of capturing only one vote outside the Kirchnerist political universe. The decision olympically ignored of the teaching manuals of electoral psychology that state that to obtain a majority you must present a political formula capable of attracting the will not only of those convinced –the hard nucleus of party force – but also those who could be attracted for other reasons: rejection of anti-Kichenerist forces, opportune calculation or tendency to “vote for the winner” among many others.

But the Scioli-Zannini formula closed all the doors as demonstrated last Sunday and was stuck with the Kitchener vote, important but not enough to obtain a difference that would have avoided the feared second voting.

Added was another inexplicable error; the stubbornness of proposing as candidate for the crucial province of Buenos Aires, in which almost 38% of the national electoral role is the mother of all political battles in Argentina, the Head of the Cabinet of Ministers of President Cristina Fernández, Aníbal Fernández. He was victim of a tenacious campaign of loss of prestige that made him the personality with the largest negative influence in the province. In spite of this it was stubborn insistence of backing a candidate in view of the complex electoral panorama of the province. The result was the clear defeat to the opposition candidate, María Eugenia Vidal, who lacked completely experience in this district since she had held the position, for eight years, as vice head of the Government of the city of Buenos Aires, accompanied by Mauricio Macri. It is worthwhile acknowledging that in this defeat there are concurring responsibilities: the poor image of Fernández was evident with the poor management of Scioli in the province. If it had been better, Vidal would not have achieved the governorship. For example, if instead of doting the province with the so publicized 85 000 new police forces, the outgoing governor would have designated an equal number for new teachers; another result would have been observed. In any case, it is hard to understand the reasons for such a costly stubbornness in maintaining a candidate like Fernández in these circumstances. 

Lastly, a brief summary, another error was the decision to make Scioli to campaign in more like Cristina whose central axis was the closed defense of presidential management without any projection for the future.

Those who proposed as slogan a change – thus the name of the rightwing alliance: “Cambiemos” or those like Macri who in a demagogic stance exalted the “revolution of joy”, Scioli appears like a sad and doubting politician, on the defensive and historically ill treated by the president and her entourage; weakened by the criticisms received from the Casa Rosada, the Cámpora, Carta Abierta and with a libretto that condemns him to positions as the staunch defender of “the project” without the slightest possibility of referring to all that he must do, such as the integral tax reform, the statization of foreign trade and implementation of a skeptical anti inflationary policy to present liquidation of a substantial social investment of the government of Cristina Fernández. The results are in plain view.

There are other issues to point out such as the obvious failure in the debate with the other presidential candidates that diminished his image even more in the eyes of public opinion and the opportunist announcements made around the same time of doubling the salary platform that would have needed the national government to have done some time ago. Nonetheless it would seem that there have been certain changes in the social structure of Argentina, and in a cultural climate in the country, strongly semiotic terrorism launched by the right wing; changes produced precisely by the policies of social inclusion in the government of CF did not operated in the direction that would grant more sustainability to the project but, on the contrary, in line with the tendencies already observed in countries such as Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela and it is hard to understand how it can have passed by Argentina. Not necessarily the popular sectors that improve their socioeconomic and cultural situation thanks to the actions of the progressive and left wing governments after recompensation with their vote and in Argentina last Sunday was more than eloquent. For a long time we have ben warning, in face of an absence of a systematic work of awareness and ideological formation – the famous “battle of ideas” of Fidel – the boom of consumerism does not create political hegemony but ends up increasing the rank and file of the parties of the right wing.

Given the previous situation mentioned, reversing what occurred in the first electoral round appears difficult but not impossible. It will have to be tried to prevent Argentina from being the spearhead of a process that now is the ‘end of a progressive cycle” in the region something that a few days ago seemed improbable. In fact, if the candidate of Kirchnerism is defeated in the second round it would be the first time that a progressive or left wing government is defeated in the ballots since the first triumph of Hugo Chávez in December of 1998. Until now all those governments were ratified in elections and it would be lamentable that Argentina is the first to break with this positive tendency.

We have a regional responsibility we cannot elude: a victory of Macri would be a mortal blow to UNASUR, CELAC and even Mercosur. Also Argentine would be unconditional aligned to the Empire and by this it would redouble its offensive against the Bolivarian governments, even increasingly denied foreign support. As Latin American and Marxist I cannot be indifferent to the threat that represents an eventual government of Macri that would immediately join with the likes of Álvaro Uribe, José M. Aznar and their US mentors in their insistent crusade to erase Chavism from the face of the earth as well as the governments of Evo and Correa to promote a “change of regime” in Cuba. In other words to definitely erase all signs of anti-imperialism in Latin America. 

No one genuinely on the side of the political left can contemplate in distraction the possibility confronting it with all their strength. Unfortunately we have reached this point. We have no better option but the FVP to avoid the greater risk of a worse evil, knowing full well that if we triumph in this effort we would have a political alternative of the left because Kirchnerism with its successes, its errors and ideological limitations is not and cannot be.

Could Scioli conquer his opponent in the second round? It would depend of how he designs his campaign strategy these weeks. The debates with Macri can be the key to triumph if he can pass to the offensive and demonstrate the vacuity of his opponent who hides a brutal program of adjustments. But that is not enough. He will also stop assuming the discourse in defense of Kirchnerism (something that President Cristina Fernández needs no help because she does it infinitely better); define new priorities and come out with concrete proposals on economic social, cultural and international proposals that could sway public opinion. Could he be the president that begins doing everything that Kirchnerism, at another time, acknowledged that still left is to do and he did it. And to say with conviction, without asking the permission of anyone who expects affectionate slaps in the back from the Casa Rosada. It is a difficult task but not impossible. Against him he does not have a De Gaule or a Churchill but a drab product of astute political marketing supported by the publicity apparatus of the imperial right. Diifficut, I repeat but far from impossible. Hopefully those who intend to deny it this second round is risking the game of the future with the emancipating process and anti imperialist battles in Latin America.

Tweet