Today is Halloween, an occasion whose importance in Argentina (like Saint Patrick’s Day) seemed to be rising as the past century faded in line with the “carnal relations” with the United States pursued by Carlos Menem but in this millennium has apparently receded as this century advanced. Yet Hollywood has continued to export enough horror films here for most locals to understand what Halloween means – ghosts, witches, monsters, haunted houses, skeletons, “trick or treat,” pumpkins, jack-o’-lanterns, apple-bobbing and all the rest of it. The term “Hallowe’en” itself means the eve of All Saints’ Day (November 1) so less secular ages saw it as the last chance of evil spirits before the saints came marching in so that ways needed to be found to keep the demons at bay.
So how is the scary spirit of Halloween transferred to Argentine political analysis? There is one obvious candidate considered too obvious for this column – a lot of people would consider the closest thing to a witch among the range of Argentine political personalities to be Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (even if Presidential Chief-of-Staff Karina Milei reportedly has a yen for the occult and the esoteric) but in any realistic terms there is no more reason to be afraid of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner than of Virginia Woolf. Let us leave her stuck in the flat of her house arrest (if allowed to remain there amid the blanket confiscation of her assets) and her courtroom imbroglios.
Instead today’s choice of a Halloween ghost will paraphrase the first words of the 1848 Communist Manifesto – “A spectre is haunting Argentina – the spectre of Communism (as personified by Buenos Aires Province Governor Axel Kicillof).” The thought of a man who has been described as “a Marxist disguised as a Keynesian” taking control of the Argentine economy is paralysing economic activity at home and investment abroad. These fears have all the makings of a self-justifying prophecy because the frustrations of economic stagnation make it all the easier for the dreaded Kicillof to win. The need to escape these vicious circles gives all the more force to the Jorge Luis Borges quote: “Hope is not only a right, it is a duty.”
At this point in time any electoral forecast is ludicrously premature with almost a year still to go. At this stage before the last general elections electing Javier Milei in 2023 there was absolutely no doubt in the mind of any pundit that the hapless Alberto Fernández (still six months away from renouncing re-election) would be succeeded by then-Buenos Aires City mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta as the leading figure in the Juntos por el Cambio opposition – he ended up with 11.3 percent of the vote in the PASO primaries of August 2023.
This uncertainty perhaps does not serve to banish a “wait and see” attitude among investors but rather than placing their focus on the losses they might be avoiding, they might be better advised to think of the opportunities they could be missing. These are not limited to the list trotted out again and again with fossil fuels, mining and the knowledge industries joining the traditional strength in agriculture – and as far as the first two items go, investors should stop to consider that even if Kicillof wins the presidency, Article 124 of the Constitution stipulates that ownership and original domain of natural resources belong to the individual provinces, not the federal government, and among the current governors of mining provinces, even the Peronists are keen on cashing in. But the list of beneficiaries from the continuation of a market-friendly government would be much longer with a general, although not universal spillover (a more open economy and the technological onslaught of Artificial Intelligence would continue to claim victims) – what are now virtually junk bonds with country risk hitting 763 points in midweek would shoot up in value.
If Kicillof is doomed to perpetuate the curse of Buenos Aires Province governors never having been elected President despite heading by far the country’s most populous district (and he does head a deeply divided movement, alongside being a hard sell inland), those companies moving in first have some huge advantages over late entrants. Their head start extends to establishing market dominance, building customer loyalty and even defining the industry as such with the brand names of pioneering companies often becoming synonymous with the product category.
Argentina’s elections are almost a year away but the United States, which placed the “trick or treat” of vaguely Celtic origins on the world map, votes in midterms next Tuesday. The astonishing presidential offer of a Trump Dividend in the form of a US$5,000 cheque for every adult citizen in the event of a Republican victory could almost be described as “trick and treat” on a truly massive scale, potentially costing around a trillion dollars. Both the rhetoric of the candidates and the attitudes of voters have been much closer to the spirit of Halloween than All Saints’ Day with a plethora of negative campaigning – both Republicans and Democrats have been far more inclined to describe their rivals as monsters, witches, ghosts, skeletons etc. than themselves as paragons of saintly virtue.
As things now stand, it looks as if the US Treasury will be spared paying out the Trump Dividend but the surprise result of last Sunday’s run-off in Brazil should teach us that you never know – with Flávio Bolsonaro ahead in the first round (always a guarantee of final victory in the past) and with all the third parties right of centre, the election looked like his to lose. But it was, in the end, lost.
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