the country votes to select future presidential candidates

Argentinians, exhausted by inflation and disenchanted with their policies, began voting on Sunday (August 13) in primary elections to nominate the candidates for the presidential elections in October, a poll with an uncertain outcome for the succession of Alberto Fernandez, ranked center-left, who will not run again.

More than 35 million voters are called upon to pre-select both the parties that will be in the running on October 22 for the presidential election – this requires obtaining 1.5% of the votes – and their candidates. Like a life-size, double-trigger sounding.

Polling stations, which opened at 8 a.m. local time (1 p.m. CET), will welcome Argentines until 6 p.m. (11 p.m. CET), and the first results should be known around 3 a.m. , Paris time.

Sergio Massa guaranteed to win at centre-left

Who really wants to lead Argentina, Latin America’s third largest economy with spectacular agricultural and raw materials potential, but the continent’s long-term sickness? Locked in double-digit inflation for twelve years, + 115% over one year, massive indebtedness with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), poverty at 40%.

Twenty-two “president and vice-president” tickets compete for this office. There will only be half a dozen left on Sunday evening for October 22, including two dominant blocs, from which the next president should emerge. The outgoing, Alberto Fernandez, very unpopular, does not represent himself.

In the center-left government camp, Sergio Massa, 51-year-old economy minister, is sure to win the primary, despite a minor candidacy on his left. The centrist Massa succeeded in rallying the Peronist camp and keeping the ear of the IMF. However, the fact of managing, for a year, an economy in intensive care plays against him.

Large unknown on the right

In the right-wing opposition, a real, tight primary pits the mayor of Buenos Aires since 2015, Horacio Larreta, 57, who portrays himself as a moderate and a follower of consultation, against a former security minister, Patricia Bullrich , 67, who promises methods “shock”both in terms of economy and safety. “It’s the big unknown. Who will be chosen between Mr. Larreta and Mr.^me Bullrich? This election is very open, and this result will define the new electoral landscape.judges the independent political scientist Carlos Fara.

A major interest of open, simultaneous and compulsory primaries (PASO) is to give a trend, a barometer of the state of forces, sometimes auguring the presidential election. This was the case in 2019, when the primary score of Alberto Fernandez – the only pre-candidate of the Peronist camp – foreshadowed his presidential victory over Mauricio Macri. But the look “life-size survey” only play in the event of a significant gap, as a lot can still happen in two months of the campaign.

Appeasement or disappointment?

But already, the PASO 2023 mark a break, with the absence of two dominant figures of Argentine political life in recent years: the Peronist Cristina Kirchner, 70, former Head of State (2007-2015 ), and Mauricio Macri, 64, the liberal president who succeeded him in 2015, before being defeated by Alberto Fernandez in 2019.

Could the withdrawal of these two great rivals, antagonistic and divisive personalities herald a respite from the acute polarization of Argentine politics? Unless he signals a general disillusion, after two very contrasting presidencies, one liberal, the other interventionist, both of which have been bitterly disappointing.

“I want a government that will restore the economy, but I know it will take time, we have a lot of debt, and it won’t be easy to recover what has been lost under others. I also want a government that listens to young people! »launched to Agence France-Presse, two days before the election, Agustina Rossi, a student in Buenos Aires, who, at 16, will vote for the first time. “There is a growing disaffection of the electorate, in a country which had marked political identities”, diagnoses Juan Negri, political scientist from the Torcuato di Tella University. And analysts predict a strong abstention, more than 25%, despite the compulsory nature of the vote.

Unless this disenchantment benefits the “third man”the ultraliberal-libertarian economist Javier Milei, with a fiery speech against the “caste” policy, which had caused a sensation in the legislative elections in 2021, his party becoming the third force in Buenos Aires (17.3%). But who could struggle to replicate this impact nationwide?

At the same time as the candidates for the presidency, the Argentines vote on Sunday to preselect candidates for the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, which will be renewed in part during the ballot on October 22.