This Sunday, Argentina faces the most crucial elections since the end of the dictatorship in 1983. It is not a cliché. The situation is unprecedented. For the first time a far-right, Javier Milei, can reach the Casa Rosada. It is true that Mafalda’s native country has been in uncertainty for many years, no matter who governs. In this situation, the Peronist candidate, Sergio Massa, is much more predictable than the unknown Milei, although he now adds the support of the traditional right represented by Mauricio Macri.
As happened in the first round on October 22, the anarcho-capitalist economist – as he defines himself – is the favorite in the polls, although now with a smaller advantage. Then, the polls were wrong and Milei came second with 30%, behind Massa, with almost 37%. Now, the difference is narrower and highlights the high number of undecided people, who could decide the presidency. Of the last thirteen surveys carried out since the first round, Milei would obtain an average of 45% compared to 42% for Massa.
The thirteen points that are missing until reaching 100% are undecided or people who express their intention to vote blank or null, options that could be higher than on other occasions taking into account the never-before-seen dilemma that Argentines face: choose between a Peronist who comes from ultraliberalism and now represents a Justicialist coalition –Unión por la Patria– dominated on paper by Kirchnerism and which concentrates the center-left vote; or support an extremist outsider who, with his party, La Libertad Avanza, proposes a savage cut of the State, dollarizing the economy or liberalizing the sale of organs and who, in addition, claims to speak with his dead dog, Conan.
The aforementioned polls were carried out before the televised debate that both candidates participated in last Sunday night at the Faculty of Law of the University of Buenos Aires. Analysts agreed yesterday that Massa won the debate, cornering Milei with personal references and constant questions to which the far-right reacted by trying to maintain composure, after having become popular precisely for his outbursts of anger, first during his time as a talk show host. television and then as a politician.
In fact, yesterday Milei himself said on Radio Miter that Massa was “very aggressive” with him and that he tried to leave him as “unbalanced, who is not capable of governing.” In addition, the ultra leader denounced the Peronist candidate for placing “a chorus of coughers” or “coughers” among the debate audience so that they would distract him. Those words are reminiscent of the interview that a few days after the first round he gave on a television program, where Milei complained that the noises on the set bothered him and where he left some phrases that once again called into question his emotional stability. .
During the debate, both candidates accused each other of lying. “If you were Pinocchio, you would have already hurt my eye,” he snapped at his rival Milei, who stood on the defensive as if he were not the opponent. Meanwhile, Massa did not seem to be the Minister of Economy of the current government of Alberto Fernández, in a country with 138% inflation and 40% poverty. Milei also did not decide to exploit the vein of the numerous corruption scandals that plague Peronism from the time of Néstor Kirchner until today.
Neither former President Macri nor Patricia Bullrich, the traditional right-wing candidate who, with the Together for Change coalition, came third in the first round, with almost 24%, did not attend the Law School. It is expected that a good part of those votes will go to Milei, who during the campaign in this second round has exercised moderation, avoiding losing his temper and hiding the chainsaw with which he promised to cut down the State and put an end to the “caste.” policy” of which – until October 22 – Macri and Bullrich were part, according to what the candidate himself claimed until that day.
However, Together for Change also houses a centrist sector led by the Radical Civic Union, many of whose voters, despite being a historically anti-Peronist party, would vote for Massa to avoid the ultra drift of Milei, whom Macri implicitly promises to moderate. if he arrived at the Casa Rosada. A mission that becomes unknown considering the character of the candidate.
Another decisive factor is the path that the voters of the dissident Peronist Juan Schiaretti will take, who in the first round came fourth with 6.73%. Governor of the province of Córdoba, Schiaretti has not expressed his support for either of the two candidates, although polls estimate that his voters would be divided. For some reason Milei has decided to close his campaign on Thursday in Córdoba.
Yesterday Schiaretti winked at Massa when receiving Estela de Carlotto, president of Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, in the final stretch of a campaign where the defense of human rights has also played a prominent role: the candidate for vice president of Milei is Victoria Villarruel, a lawyer sympathetic to the dictatorship.
