In government eyes, last weekend’s upset win in this city’s legislative elections marks the real beginning of a midterm campaign which technically began six weeks ago with the Santa Fe constituent assembly elections. Four provinces had voted in the previous weekend where the libertarian results were good (victory in the provincial capital of Salta), bad (San Luis) or indifferent, but memories of 2023 would make them all seem irrelevant – to give one example, the libertarian haul in the Misiones provincial elections was a mere 3,000 votes, only for Javier Milei to win that province with 42 percent in the first round and 56 percent in the run-off. But last weekend’s triumph pulverising almost two decades of PRO dominance in the national capital and creating a virtual monopoly of all voting right of centre was celebrated as a virtual game-changer.
Yet the cost of winning over the PRO electorate might have been starting to resemble their party. Last Sunday’s triumph could be the stepping-stone for further victories in such urban middle-class strongholds as Córdoba, Rosario, Mendoza and Mar del Plata – replicating the central yellow belt of both the 2015 and 2019 presidential elections between a Peronist blue north and south in a map resembling the Boca Juniors shirt – but Milei’s next major stop is Buenos Aires Province in September with a rather different sociology. The triumph of his spokesman Manuel Adorni featured major gains in such erstwhile PRO bastions as Belgrano, Palermo, Recoleta and Puerto Madero (where he took almost half the vote) but also a certain slippage in the Peronist South Side. The libertarians thus risk losing their lumpenproletarian edge which would be crucial in the battle for the Greater Buenos Aires vote. While they total almost 18 months in office and not the 18 years of erosion which came home to PRO last Sunday, they have also been in power long enough to start shedding their outsider rebel image and there are signs that they may be losing some of their youth vote (whose contribution to turnout plunging to barely over a half might be worth examining). The Peronist victory in such lower middle-class communes as Almagro and Caballito also point to a certain indifference among that segment. The beginnings of an identity crisis?
Given that Buenos Aires Province and City vote in opposite directions almost as a matter of principle, Milei’s new electorate coming at the expense of lumpenproletarian and rebellious overtones in the movement’s image will make the economy more important. Austerity has done wonders for the macro-economic indicators, an achievement earning the gratitude of around 15 percent of the City electorate last Sunday, but it has also hit broad sectors hard, especially in the Greater Buenos Aires previously pampered by Kirchnerism. Economic growth would thus be vital yet the libertarian strategy to co-opt PRO leaders in Buenos Aires Province instead of rubbishing their party as in the City might send the wrong message by enhancing a middle-class image, even if La Libertad Avanza has no scruples over recruiting Peronist opportunists in order to supplant their lack of cadres. A movement which has recruited various members of the Menem clan (including the Congress Speaker) now faces the challenging of reviving Menem’s unique alliance between the upper and middle classes, a challenge which will be especially tested in Buenos Aires Province.
Gunning for PRO in last Sunday’s elections in order to monopolise the spectrum right of centre, while leaving Kirchnerism as the clear runner-up in a hostile district, might have paid dividends for this year’s midterm objectives but some of the misgivings expressed at last week’s AmCham Summit would suggest more doubts for the long term. Quite apart from some potential investors being disturbed by Milei’s crudely populist style at a time when the populist running the White House has disrupted the global economy so far this year, presenting Kirchnerism as the alternative to the extent of keeping Cristina Fernández de Kirchner electorally alive as the ideal punching-bag only feed fears of a violent U-turn should Milei slip up – the Plan B of a constructive alternative to the ruling party is needed for investor confidence.
But having said all this and even given such dirty tricks as the sham video purporting to show ex-president Mauricio Macri turning on his own party to back Adorni and Milei, it would be churlish not to congratulate the winners.
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