Blast from the past

Talleyrand’s famous quip about the restoration of the French monarchy in 1814: “The Bourbons have learned nothing and forgotten nothing” might also seem a perfect description of the newly triumphant Kirchnerism in Buenos Aires Province, whose often testimonial candidates cannot offer a single new idea to offset their sad record in areas like education and crime-fighting in the mega-district. After such a disruptive and transformational phenomenon as the French Revolution, it seemed impossible that such an antiquated and autistic dynasty as the Bourbons could ever rule again, yet a quarter-century later they were back. Since things move much faster these days, can we rule out a return of Kirchnerism, not in 25 years but 25 months (or even 25 days if somebody or something triggers the social conflict under the volcano)?

Hard to believe now but the decision to advance the Buenos Aires Province voting at provincial level was at the time a defensive strategy to dodge the anticipated libertarian steamroller in next month’s national midterms. Exactly the same logic was underlying Buenos Aires City Mayor Jorge Macri´s decision to bring forward his midterms last May and yet an identical strategy resulted in La Libertad Avanza (LLA) finishing 14 points ahead of and almost 14 points behind the local governments in Buenos Aires City and Province respectively. Albert Einstein famously defined insanity as doing the same thing and expecting different results but this year’s voting in this City and BA Province seems to disprove insanely this widely accepted maxim. That decision to bring forward the Buenos Aires Province midterms was disputed by ex-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner precisely because they would bring the aforementioned deficits in public education and crime-fighting to the fore, but President Javier Milei’s gratuitous decision to transform this provincial bout into a plebiscite and an advance opinion poll changed all that.

Does Sunday’s win mark an irreversible road towards Axel Kicillof becoming the first Buenos Aires Province governor ever to be elected president within its current boundaries dating back to 1880? Not much sign of any Plan B from the government to stop the rot – it would seem that the Kirchnerites are not the only people who have learned nothing and forgotten nothing from La Libertad Avanza’s insistence on entrusting their campaign to turncoat Peronist opportunists over centre-right allies after the 2023 experience, when no less than nine of the 13 LLA deputies (mostly supplied by Milei’s run-off rival Sergio Massa to frustrate Juntos por el Cambio) promptly broke away to form the Unión, Renovación y Fe caucus frequently backing Kicillof (these have since been replaced by provincial deputies deserting PRO). The definition of insanity as expecting different results from the same methods works rather better here.

Nevertheless, there is room for doubt as to whether Kicillof is “condemned to success” (dixit Eduardo Duhalde, the only Buenos Aires Province governor since Bartolomé Mitre to reach the presidency, albeit not via the ballot-box). Firstly, Sunday’s election was very much the mayoral tail wagging the dog and here we’re not just talking about the well-oiled machines of Greater Buenos Aires Peronist “barons” – almost the only successes of third parties came thanks to the PRO mayors of San Nicolás and Junín bucking the alliance with the Mileis (with almost 24 percent for Hechos in the Second Electoral District and almost 20 percent for Somos Buenos Aires in the Fourth), thus proving mayoral clout beyond the general trend. With municipal councils at stake last Sunday, mayors went all out to secure their turf with relatively scant effort likely either next month or in the 2027 presidential elections.

Secondly, quite apart from Kicillof being until now somewhat shy in displaying whatever leadership qualities he might possess, his model might not be exportable to the rest of the country. Whatever damage last Sunday’s backlash may have done to the country’s macro-economic stability, this columnist would insist that it was a rational vote for Buenos Aires Province since Kirchnerite populism has always centred on pandering to the Greater Buenos Aires masses – just as any inhabitant of La Rioja in their right mind would be voting for Carlos Menem in the last decade of the past century and any citizen of Santa Cruz for Néstor Kirchner in the first decade of this century as the president most likely to favour their province, so Buenos Aires Province was voting for itself last Sunday as a district which has long had reason to feel short-changed. A province with 38.5 percent of the nation’s population receives 23.6 percent of the country’s federal revenue-sharing funds while within that province the First and Third Sections (i.e. Greater Buenos Aires) house over 71 percent of the provincial population but are represented by 33 of the 92 provincial deputies or barely 35 percent with these inequities apparently more deeply felt in the Third Section than the First. A sob story hard to project nationwide.

Milei’s attempts at his Gonnet bunker to explain away Sunday’s verdict being anything but his forecast of a “technical draw” centred exclusively on political campaign errors, ignoring the “It’s the economy, stupid” accompanying any election – the words of Cabinet Chief Guillermo Francos as to macro-economic success not reaching the micro-economic level were probably closer to the mark. The economy had been decelerating since June and recessive interest rates to preserve the electoral trump card of inflation looks like having been a horrible miscalculation. Investment to inject growth looks more remote than ever – the exit of some 80 multinationals since the pandemic has not been reversed under Milei with over a dozen departures since he took office while last Monday the stock market plunged 16 percent in the fifth-biggest crash in Argentine history.

Further analysis will be postponed for next week’s column with space running out for the number-crunching, which is the core of electoral reporting. Only room for the main figures with fuller details next week. Complete results will hopefully be available next week but with almost 99 percent of voting precincts reporting, Fuerza Patria had 47.28 percent from some 3.82 million votes, La Libertad Avanza 33.71 percent with 2.69 million votes, a polarised race leaving the Radical-backed Somos Buenos Aires (5.95 percent) and FIT-U leftists (4.37 percent) trailing with the remaining 8.69 percent even more fragmented in a turnout of 61.2 percent. These percentages drew the most attention but the elections were actually to renew 23 senators and 46 deputies with results of 13/8/2/- and 21/18/2/2 for the above four parties with three other deputies elected. To be continued next week.