Argentine elections stun Kirchners

Mel Zelaya wasn’t the only Latin American leader to have a lousy weekend.

Sunday’s congressional elections served as a stunning setback for President Cristina Kirchner and her ex-presidential husband. Infighting within the Peronist Party led them to lose its majority in both legislative chambers as well as local seats in Buenos Aires and even the Kirchners' home province of Santa Cruz. After losing his own bid for a seat in Congress, Nestor Kirchner quit as leader of the Justicialists while the president tried to save face by emphasizing “consensus and agreements in order to govern.”

For a greater insight into Sunday’s elections and the future of Argentina, Rice University professor of political science Mark Jones was gracious enough to grant us an interview.

The Latin Americanist: Surely the biggest losers of Sunday's local elections in Argentina are the Kirchners. But which political figures could be labeled as the "big winners.?

Mark Jones: There were three big winners on Sunday.

Most prominently, the alliance of parties backed by Vice President Julio Cobos in his home province of Mendoza won a resounding victory over the Kirchner aligned governor's (Celso Jaque) list. In the top of the ticket Senate race, Cobos' Federal Civic Front won 50% of the vote to Jaque's Front for Victory's 25%. This victory positions Cobos as the front-runner for the 2011 presidential election from within the non-Peronist opposition.

Another big winner on Sunday was Senator Carlos Reutemann. Reutemann, a moderately anti-Kirchner Peronist, kept his presidential aspirations alive by narrowly defeating Socialist Rubén Giustiniani (the shadow candidate of Santa Fe Governor Hermes Binner) in the Santa Fe Senate elections, 42% to 41%. Reutemann's performance was weakened by the presence of a Kirchner-aligned Peronist in the race, who siphoned off 8% of the Peronist vote (much of which would have otherwise gone to Reutemann).

Dissident Peronist Francisco De Narváez should also be considered a big winner, defeating former President Néstor Kirchner in the Province of Buenos Aires Chamber of Deputies election 35% to 32% (De Narváez and Kirchner headed the Union PRO and Justicialista Front for Victory lists respectively). Through this victory De Narváez has positioned himself well for a run at the office of Governor in the Province of Buenos Aires in 2011. However the road to La Plata (capital of the Province of Buenos Aires) will not be free of obstacles for De Narváez, with Cabinet Chief Sergio Massa representing a formidable rival for the governorship in 2011.

Lastly, while not reaching the same level of salience as the three above-mentioned victories, on Sunday several governors ratified their dominance within their respective province. For instance, the Peronist Governor of Chubut, Mario Das Neves (a dark horse candidate for the presidency in 2011) can be considered a winner due to the manner in which he demonstrated his absolute control of his province. Das Neves' Front for Integration list won 56% of the vote, more than three times that won by the runner-up Radical Civic Union (18%). A similar level of dominance was demonstrated by other governors, including Peronists José Alperovich (Tucumán), José Luis Gioja (San Juan), Alberto Rodríguez Saá (San Luis), and pro-Kirchner Radical Gerardo Zamora (Santiago del Estero).

TLA: Did President Cristina Fernandez miscalcuate by moving the elections up from October?

MJ: President Fernández did not miscalculate, simply because she does not make the important political decisions. Her husband, former President Néstor Kirchner, and the real powerbroker and decisionmaker, definitely miscalculated, but principally in terms of campaign strategy, by turning the election in the Province of Buenos Aires (in particular) as well as those (to a lesser extent) in the interior provinces into a referendum on him and the Kirchner Government. The electoral results demonstrated substantially more antipathy towards the Kirchners within the electorate than had been estimated by the public opinion polls. As a result of Kirchner's referendum approach to the election, the disparate opposition (principally the pan-Radical opposition alliance and the alliance of dissident Peronists with Capital Federal "Governor" Mauricio Macri) did not need to develop a credible or effective campaign message based on policy proposals, but rather (with some important provincial exceptions) could campaign simply based on their representing a vote "against" the Kirchners. As things turned out, from Kirchner's home province of Santa Cruz (where the Kirchner list was defeated, 43% to 41%) in the South to the Province of Buenos Aires on the Eastern coast, to Mendoza in the Andes, a majority of Argentine citizens chose to cast a vote against the Kirchners, handing them an embarrassing defeat with nearly two and a half years remaining in the presidency of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

In regard to the decision to move the elections to October, that probably was not a miscalculation, since waiting until October would have resulted in a further erosion of support (due principally to the deepening economic crisis in Argentina) as well as would have allowed the opposition to better organize itself to compete in the elections.

TLA: Ex-president Kirchner has already quit as head of the Peronistas but what should the current president's next political move be?

MJ: The Peronist Party (Partido Justicialista) formal party structure is an empty shell that is only as important as the person running the show. For the time being Néstor Kirchner will still be the de facto leader of the Peronist movement, albeit in a position where he has to increasingly negotiate with the major powerbrokers within Peronism (principally the Peronist governors).

TLA: Is the Peronist Party dead or will it be able to soon regroup?

MJ: Peronism is a very resilient movement. It will soon regroup, most likely under the leadership of the most viable Peronist presidential candidate for the 2011 election (e.g., Carlos Reutemann). However, between now and the 2011 election will be a period of transition and tension, since while many Peronists will gravitate towards Reutemann (or another leader if that person becomes the front-runner), the fact remains that for the next two and a half years (i.e., until December 10, 2011), Néstor Kirchner will continue to control the purse strings, and therefore the governors will need to work with him in order to keep their provinces running. What we are likely to see though is a change in the relationship between Kirchner in the governors, moving from the current authoritarian top-down relationship of patron and client, to one of something approaching (though not actually reaching) that of a relationship among equals.
Barring a major surprise over the next two years, it is very likely that the next Argentine President will be Peronist, with today Carlos Reutemann representing the front-runner in the race. It is though still far too early to rule out other potential Peronist candidates such as Chubut Governor Mario Das Neves, Buenos Aires Governor Daniel Scioli (though weakened by his strong association with the Kirchners), and quasi-Peronist Mauricio Macri ("Governor" of the City of Buenos Aires).

Image- AP (“Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez gestures during a press conference at the government house in Buenos Aires, Monday, June 29, 2009. Fernandez and her predecessor and husband Nestor Kirchner suffered a stunning setback in Sunday congressional elections, seen as a referendum on their political dynasty, losing control of both houses of Congress. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)”)
Online Sources- AFP, BBC News, CNN