Ins and outs of Congress

The candidates for the October midterms were duly defined by last weekend’s deadline but far too many names for any comprehensive coverage in this space – almost 400 in Buenos Aires City and Province alone (245 in the latter and 154 in the former including the senatorial race) and hundreds more inland with no PASO primaries to filter the proliferation of lists. Since there will be eight more columns to follow these names on the campaign trail with time to look at the 151 winners clinching seats as deputies or senators between their election on October 26 and joining the next Congress on December 10, let us first look at those falling by the wayside and out of this space in future.

There will be at least 95 new deputies in the future Congress with only 32 aspiring to hold their seats and in all probability well over 100. Almost all those taking their leave would doubtless be rubbished by President Javier Milei as “caste” but most carry a political weight far from evident in their prospective replacements – the front-running La Libertad Avanza (LLA) in particular, where subservience and social network appeal appear the chief criteria for nomination, seems to be giving the most visibility to starlets, sports figures and influencers. The excess of lawyers in parliamentary institutions has long been bemoaned but it does not seem unreasonable to expect some knowledge of the law and some understanding of the content in legislation from the actual lawmakers – how many of these candidates could decipher a budget whose absence continues?

Some of those bowing out find age catching up with them such as Carlos Heller (aged 84) and ex-Speaker Leopoldo Moreau (78) after a quarter-century of parliamentary career from Kirchnerite ranks. The exits further include two central figures from the 2008 showdown with the farming sector – then vice-president Julio César Cleto Cobos (whose “not positive” vote killed the sliding scale for grain export duties) and Senator Alfredo De Angeli, a prominent rural resistance leader. Former Buenos Aires Province governor María Eugenia Vidal and Radical caucus chief Rodrigo de Laredo have both fallen afoul of alliances with the LLA begrudging anybody else. All the above had something to say, as did the gifted economists Martín Tetaz (Radical) and Luciano Laspina (PRO) alongside such articulate voices as Fernando Iglesias (PRO) and Fabio Quetglas (Radical) as well as the Peronist ex-minister and social welfare expert Daniel Arroyo and the former Rosario socialist mayor Mónica Fein – Iglesias in particular was such a fervid government cheerleader that he seems to be out for simply being too loose a cannon to be trusted.

Not all the exits will be missed – Senators Oscar Parrilli (the former SIDE intelligence chief eternally branded as “pelotudo” by Cristina Fernández de Kirchner) and Claudia Ledesma Abdala (inexplicably out despite being the first lady of Santiago del Estero strongman Gerardo Zamora moving into her seat) spring to mind alongside maverick libertarian deputy Carolina Píparo (whose futile 2023 Buenos Aires Province gubernatorial bid is responsible for Axel Kicillof being governor today as much as anything). But the most surprising absence from the lists is surely Máximo Kirchner.

Nor are all those relinquishing seats entering the political wilderness. Deputies Leandro Santoro and Silvia Lospennato, leading contenders in last May’s local midterms, will be moving to the City legislature while three libertarian deputies are seeking an upgrade to the Senate with good prospects. Senator Martín Lousteau, Radical party chairman and polling almost 49 percent mayoral votes in both the 2015 run-off and the 2023 PASO primaries, is moving in the opposite direction and must fancy his chances since the LLA and Kirchnerism are fielding such relatively secondary top candidates as Alejandro Fargosi and Itai Hagman. The same cannot be said for deputy Facundo Manes with his rash last-minute breakaway from Ciudadanos Unidos after cutting all Radical links last May.

The quarter of outgoing deputies seeking to stay include relatively few household names. Budget Committee chairman José Luis Espert topping the Buenos Aires Province LLA-PRO list is a prestigious economist, Diego Santilli a PRO kingpin and Alejandro Finocchiaro a former education minister while PRO deputies Sabrina Ajmechet and Laura Rodriguez Machado are not as obscure as most others. Among Fuerza Patria incumbents, Sergio Palazzo, Vanesa Siley and Hugo Yasky are better known for being trade union heavyweights rather than for any positive parliamentary contribution. The 14 deputies less likely to continue seem to offer more substance than the 18 in safe seats – they include the ex-minister and economist Ricardo López Murphy (City-Republicanos Unidos), ex-minister Florencio Randazzo, veteran centrist Margarita Stolbizer and ex-Speaker Emilio Monzó all trying their luck with Provincias Unidas along with Coalición Cívica’s Juan Manuel López.

Of the 127 seats, Peronism will be renewing 45, the libertarians and PRO 23 between them, the two Radical splinters (the traditional UCR and Democracia para Siempre) 20 between them and Encuentro Federal seven.

The renewal of the 24 Senate seats will be even more sweeping with only four Peronists – Mariano Recalde (City), Neuquén’s Silvia Sapag, Santiago del Estero’s Emilio Neder and Tierra del Fuego’s Cándida López – hanging on while only the former looks safe thanks to the government strategy of pooling LLA and PRO instead of trying to squeeze him out between the two lists (the fate of Daniel Filmus in 2013). Of the 20 outgoing senators, apart from the aforementioned De Angeli, Ledesma Abala, Lousteau and Parrilli, former three-term Salta governor Juan Carlos Romero and Neuquén’s Lucila Crexell are the only names which the average reader might recognise.

Several weeks to go for the candidates registered last weekend so less need to cover them all now but fewer of their names seem to impress than among the exits. Security Minister Patricia Bullrich, her senatorial running-mate Agustín Monteverde and Espert as almost the only economists (apart from the Unión Liberal’s Roberto Cachanosky with no chance), ex-minister Jorge Taiana, anti-corruption watchdog Graciela Ocaña, Myriam Bregman and Claudio Lozano as familiar names on the left and former Córdoba governor Juan Schiaretti inland spring to the fore. Running immediately behind Espert is ex-model and former lowbrow comedy actress Karen Reichardt whose chief virtue in Milei’s eyes would seem to be her love of dogs as hostess of Amores Perros – this would seem symptomatic of a lack of depth with another second candidate, Laura Salgado of Bikini Fitness in Córdoba, another case in point. 

Hopefully more information on the candidates will be supplied in the columns before the country goes to the polls but the next stop is Corrientes, which votes next weekend.