Argentina’s Crisis Election

Argentina is gearing up for its 2023 presidential elections within a context of multiple crisis. The political system has suffered from growing fragmentation since 2003, two years after the great crisis of 2001, during which the economy imploded and the country’s currency crashed, culminating in the uprising of 19 and 20 December in that pivotal year. Those mobilizations, which overthrew President Fernando de la Rúa, gave way to an institutional crisis that saw five different presidents take and leave office within a single week.

Currently, a peculiar combination of chronic economic crisis is taking place, characterized by constantly rising inflation, a deep social crisis (roughly 40 percent of the population lives in poverty), and now a political crisis arising as a consequence of the breakdown of the political system and of its coalitions. Both broad coalitions have tried and failed to resolve this crisis since 2015, and will now present largely the same package to voters in the weeks to come.

An Organic and Electoral Crisis

The Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci wrote in his Prison Notebooks that, during organic crisis, there appears a

conflict between “representatives and represented”, the content of which is the crisis of the ruling class’ hegemony, which occurs either because the ruling class has failed in some major political undertaking for which it has requested, or forcibly extracted, the consent of the broad masses (war for example), or because huge masses (especially of peasants and petit-bourgeois intellectuals) have passed suddenly from a state of political passivity to a certain activity … People refer to a “crisis of authority”: this is precisely a crisis of hegemony, or a general crisis of the State.

During the last ten years, beginning from the moment in which the economic and geopolitical conditions that enabled the cycle of the three Kirchnerist governments in 2012 were exhausted (the first term of Néstor Kirchner followed by two terms of Cristina Kirchner), we witnessed the failure of “two great enterprises”.

The first one was Mauricio Macri and his right-wing coalition known as Cambiemos (“Let’s Change”) in2015, when he promised a “return to the path of economic growth” and a recovery of Argentina’s standing in the world. Macri’s platform in those days was quite different from his current rhetoric: he claimed that living standards would recover, putting forward the slogan of a “revolution of joy”, and the tone of his discourse almost resembled a self-help manual — very different from the populist right-wing anger he demonstrates today. Actually, if there was an international figure he sought to emulate, it was Barack Obama. His administration (2015–2019) ended up in the middle of a financial storm, with all economic and social indicators in decline, a 55-percent annual inflation index, and deeply in debt to the International Monetary Fund, which helped him with an unprecedented loan package of 45 billion US dollars.

Although Kirchner has no powers to impose a candidate of her own, she has the power of veto over any applicant.

The Frente de Todos (“Everyone’s Front”), a coalition that gathered together Kirchnerism with a largely “centrist” Peronism, returned to power in 2019 with the promise to repair the damage to the social system caused by Macrism, recover wages, resolve the permanent economic crisis, and “turn on the economy”, as the Ministry of Economy stated during the first stage of the government. Yet after four years in office, real wages continue to fall, labour precariousness has expanded, and inflation rates are approaching 120 percent. The government’s failure is so evident that President Alberto Fernández gave up the idea of running for a second term.

The Agony of Fragmentation

The Argentinian elections will occur over three stages. The presidential primary, known as “PASO” (Open, Simultaneous, and Obligatory Primaries), will be held on 13 August. Here, every coalition holds a primary to select between rival presidential contenders, but the PASO are also seen as indicative of the general election’s outcome, which will take place on 22 October. To avoid a run-off election, the candidate must win 45 percent of the “yes” votes (blank ballots are deemed invalid) or more than 40 percent of total votes while finishing 10 percentage points ahead of the second-place candidate. It is exceedingly difficult for a coalition to win such a result in the general election, and therefore it is highly likely that the election will be decided in a run-off on 19 November.

The schedule of the elections takes on a new dimension in the context of Argentina’s economic and political fragility. Uncertainty in determining where the real political power will lie during the three months between the PASO and the run-off election may worsen instability or spark a crisis. As much happened when Mauricio Macri lost the primary by a landslide in 2019, and on the following day made statements basically blaming the citizenry for not voting in his favour, thus exacerbating the economic crisis that his government had faced since 2018.

The governing coalition has renamed itself Unión por la Patria, the “Union for the Homeland”, for the upcoming election, and now unites most currents of Peronism. After a tortuously long process of drawing up candidate lists, the coalition nominated Minister of the Economy Sergio Massa as its only contender for the presidency, together with cabinet chief Agustín Rossi for vice president.

As is also occurring in many other countries, rather than as an explicit party, the far right is increasingly manifesting as a broader political agenda.

Both Vice President Cristina Kirchner and President Alberto Fernández declined to stand for re-election citing various reasons, the most important of which was that they would have been unlikely to win. Kirchner has more supporters in the Peronist camp, but is also a widely disliked figure. Fernández is the most visible face of a government that clearly failed to keep its campaign promises. Although it is true that he had to govern during the COVID-19 pandemic, his greatest failure was in the management of the economy under conditions imposed by the IMF, which were wholly and completely accepted by his government.

Although Kirchner has no powers to impose a candidate of her own, she has the power of veto over any applicant, and therefore her approval was necessary for Massa to become the final candidate. With his nomination, Kirchner is repeating the same move from 2015, when she picked another conservative Peronist, Daniel Scioli, who lost to Macri, and 2019 when she picked Alberto Fernández to lead the ticket (also a moderate Peronist) with her. She justified these pivots by claiming that Argentinian society had moved to the right and, therefore, the candidates should as well.

Running from the Centre

Sergio Massa started his political career in the 1980s in a historical party of Argentinian liberalism, the Union of the Democratic Centre. He later became a supporter of then-President Carlos Menem in the 1990s, before moving to Kirchner’s camp following Menem’s shift to the right.

He joined Kirchner’s administration as an officer in charge of administering private pension funds later became cabinet chief. He then broke with Kirchner in 2013, running to her right and winning a legislative election in the strategic province of Buenos Aires, and formed his own party for the 2015 presidential elections, where he was a key factor in Macri’s victory. He only returned to the fold as the Macri government descended into crisis.

His connections to multinational corporations and the US Embassy are much stronger than Fernández’s or Scioli’s, and his political ambitions are much greater. That said, his chances at succeeding in government are dim given the economic situation, and his best hope is for the opposition to fragment beyond recognition.

The opposition (formerly known as Cambiemos, now called Juntos) is led by the Mayor of the City of Buenos Aires, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, and the  chairwoman of the right-wing party Republican Proposal formed by former president Macri, Patricia Bullrich. Larreta presents himself as belonging to the moderate centre-right: he shares the same programme with his party rival, but differs in his methods, as he thinks that a broad alliance is necessary to apply neoliberal counter-reforms. Bullrich, a chameleon-like politician, was involved with the left-wing Peronist guerrilla organization known as Montoneros in the 1970s, and has been a member of roughly 20 political parties since. Today, she flirts with the local far-right, adopting a harsh rhetoric inspired by Jair Bolsonaro and proposing economic shock therapy.

Beneath the surface, however, the actual contest within the opposition is between diverging assessments of the situation caused by Macri’s governmental failure rather than a clash of personalities. The outcome of the August primaries will be crucial in light of the October general elections: should Larreta succeed and stand against Massa, the two will be competing over a very similar political terrain, and nobody knows if the Juntos candidate will be able to retain the votes of Bullrich’s supporters. On the other hand, should Bullrich triumph, the general elections could produce even more electoral polarization.

The Libertarian Surprise

A new political phenomenon in Argentinian politics has also emerged this election cycle: libertarianism, represented by Javier Milei, an eccentric, right-talking economist with a high profile in the media who recently jumped into politics. In the 2021 legislative elections, he won 17 percent of the vote in Buenos Aires.

The so-called “Milei phenomenon” has been widely discussed in Argentina, with analysts attributing it to a number of factors. At first, it represented the radicalization of a number of Cambiemos supporters who, spurred by the failure of the government, called for harsher methods, before gathering supporters from citizens hit by the endless crisis and turning away from mainstream politics in general.

The phenomenon also responds to a certain trend described by philosopher Nancy Fraser as “progressive neoliberalism”: liberalization around individual rights, particularly those of women and minorities, coupled with mainstream economic policies. Pablo Semán, an Argentinian anthropologist, has argued that Milei and his supporters may be expressing a rejection of the “state’s miming”, that is to say, the contrast between the state’s alleged “virtues” on the one hand, and the meagre results of the state’s efforts to solve the crisis or the daily problems faced by its citizens.

The crisis afflicting the two main coalitions has deeper root causes than a mere lack of agreements between parties or candidates.

Yet Milei is also the product of the passiveness of the attempt by most of the trade unions and other social organizations that supported the Frente de Todos to prevent the emergence of popular protests, that is to say, a rebellion resulting from the social misery caused by Argentina’s awful socio-economic situation. The absence of the workers’ organizations on the public stage turned citizens’ annoyance into political impotence, burnout, fatigue, and anger (also fuelled by the pandemic). Instead of an outburst or an explosion, a political implosion took place in the form of a mute scream, whereby a segment of the population increasingly saw Milei as a political alterative.

In addition, Milei’s powerful presence in the media was also boosted by part of the establishment in order to force a shift to the right in the political debate. As is also occurring in many other countries, rather than as an explicit party, the far right is increasingly manifesting as a broader political agenda. The arrival of messianic figures is typical in times of crisis, although the real magnitude of this phenomenon will only be visible after the elections.

Hope on the Left?

Lastly, but no less significant, is the coalition of the Left, the Frente de Izquierda y de los Trabajadores – Unidad (“The Workers’ Left Front – Unity”, or FITU).

The Left’s profile on the national political stage was boosted by recent events in the Province of Jujuy in the north of the country. The outgoing governor of that province, Gerardo Morales, who is also the vice presidential candidate for the right-wing coalition Juntos, proposed a constitutional reform with two main objectives: criminalizing social protests, and ensuring a supply of lithium to multinationals to the detriment of the interests of indigenous people living in the territories where this new “white gold” is located. The popular response to his proposal was a regional uprising, with demonstrations in several cities and roadblocks all over the province.

Jujuy is important because it demonstrated the opposite of what politicians claim about the national stage: namely, that everything is shifting to the right. Moreover, its relation to the Left is not by chance: FITU candidate Alejandro Vilca, a worker of coya descent (one of the native peoples of the Andean region), won 25 percent of the vote in 2021, and in 2023 he earned 13 percent in the local elections for governor. FITU now has three national deputies and senators in many provinces, and in 2021 it was the third-strongest force in the country, winning almost 10 percent in the strategic metropolitan area of Buenos Aires.

The fear that Massa’s nomination could lose voters on the Left pushed the government of Unión por la Patria to allow for the nomination of another internal list for the primaries with Juan Grabois as candidate, a social movement leader known for his left-wing rhetoric associated with the Peronist movement.

Caught between Two Dead-Ends

The crisis afflicting the two main coalitions has deeper root causes than a mere lack of agreements between parties or candidates. The hard neoliberal roadmap Macrism set out on encountered real limitations in the political balance of power. Meanwhile, “statist” programme adopted by the Frente de Todos crashed against a state too weak to enact that programme.

The Cambiemos government was faced with the dilemma of either gaining political clout to shift the balance of forces, or changing the balance of power (through economic shock therapy) to gain political clout. The subsequent Frente de Todos government was caught in a dilemma between those calling for more state and those holding the reins of the state but lacking the necessary firepower to enact its policy. Its way out of that labyrinth was to exceed fiscal targets dictated by the IMF (which was requesting an expense reduction) and nominate the same minister who applied those adjustments: Sergio Massa

So, where does all of this leave Argentinian politics in the run-up to the election? It would appear that, to paraphrase the author Manuel Vázquez Montalbán’s description of the configuration of forces in the infamous Moncloa Pacts of the 1970s: the Argentinian situation is, rather than the outcome of a balance of forces, the outcome of a “balance of weaknesses”.

Translation by Estela Servente.