The ruling force in Argentina is trying to reorganize itself after the step aside confirmed by President Alberto Fernández, who refused to run for re-election, and the refusal presented last December by Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, vice president and main figure of the movement, to return to being candidate. The Frente de Todos coalition is threatened with being left out of the second presidential round after a legislature marked by the economic crisis.
The most repeated word in the last few hours among the Peronist ranks is “order.” A necessary reorganization for a political movement that is facing presidential elections in Argentina this October and that, for the moment, does not have any strong candidate to try to revalidate the victory obtained in 2019 by the Frente de Todos, with Alberto Fernández and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in the lead.
These two figures have already ruled out being presidential candidates for the October elections. The president did so on April 21, in a move expected by many and classified as “logical” within Peronism due to the low popularity of the president. And Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, vice president and most recognized figure in the Frente de Todos, did the same in December 2022 after she received a six-year prison sentence for corruption.
These decisions leave Peronism without a clear candidate for the presidency, but they also reflect the deep internal crisis that the movement has suffered in these four years of government, where Kirchnerism – the faction furthest to the left of Peronism and led by Cristina Fernández – has completely broken with Alberto Fernández, whom they have accused of the Executive’s low popularity and of being a “traitor” for accepting a refinancing of the Argentine debt from the International Monetary Fund, a risky strategy for the country’s economic future.
Primary or consensus?
The step aside of Alberto Fernández has caused, in Argentine politics, to open the first question about how the person who receives his witness as leader of the Frente de Todos will be chosen. There are two possibilities: the first is that Peronism reaches an agreement again and presents a unitary candidate and the second is that several candidates attend the primary, open, simultaneous and mandatory elections (PASO) that will be held next month of August to settle who will be the leader.
In 2019, the strategy followed was the first. Kirchnerism, led by Cristina Fernández, chose the formula of taking the former president as vice-presidential candidate and Alberto Fernández as presidential candidate to capture the vote of progressive and conservative Peronism with the aim of knocking down Mauricio Macri’s re-election aspirations. And although the strategy worked, in the following years the Government did not show that unity and wore down the coalition.
The confrontation of several candidates in open primaries could shed more light on the strength and weight that each of the currents of Peronism can have in the face of internal elections, although that may mean delving deeper into their fracture.
The problem is that there are no big names that can sound like for these candidacies. The most pronounced is perhaps that of the governor of the Province of Buenos Aires, Axel Kicillof, close to Vice President Fernández De Kirchner. However, the governor himself has dismissed these rumors, insisting that his objective is to revalidate his position in the governorship.
Another name that sounds is that of the current Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, a figure who has been close to Alberto Fernández and who is one of the most powerful ministers within the current Executive. The great drawback of it is that the economic results presented in Argentina in recent years -and, especially, in recent months- are very bad.
The country suffers the biggest economic crisis since the banking corralito occurred in 2001 and suffers the second highest rate of inflation in the region. Facts that have caused the purchasing power of Argentines to drop alarmingly, especially those of the working class, the historic vote barn of this coalition. In addition, other issues such as the great animosity that Massa generates among the Kirchner sector due to his agreements with the IMF and a more neoliberal cut, would make that choice difficult.
Other names sound less powerful, such as Eduardo ‘Wado’ de Pedro, current Interior Minister and member of the Kirchner faction.
Peronism without Cristina loses strength
What seems clear is that the non-candidacy of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and her stepping aside weighs down Peronist aspirations. The former president, although hated by a good part of the Argentine electorate, is the one who maintains a broader vote base within Peronism.
In fact, numerous sectors of Kirchnerism have been trying for weeks to get the vice president to retract her December decision and agree to present a presidential candidacy for what would be her third term. The good results of the governments of her husband, the late Néstor Kirchner, and of herself mean that her faithful base is still significant.
Cristina Fernández could appear because, although she has received the sentence for corruption, there is still a long litigation process ahead until the charges of which she is accused are ratified, or not. Therefore, for the moment, she is far from being subject to a disqualification process and the former president maintains that the entire judicial process against her responds to “political reasons” and she has rejected all the charges.
The Frente de Todos is at risk of being left out of the second presidential round
The election of a binding figure on time is of vital importance for the Frente de Todos coalition, not only to have an option to revalidate the presidency, but for sheer survival. Many of the polls launched in Argentina months before the presidential elections glimpse what could be an unprecedented debacle in the recent history of Peronism: being left out of the presidential runoff.
The power vacuum capable of leading a presidential race in the ruling coalition contrasts with the preparation of the opposition to return to the Casa Rosada. Former President Mauricio Macri, who many believed would opt for a new presidential candidacy for the Together for Change coalition, renounced this option a few weeks ago and there are already two candidates with serious options to lead it: Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, mayor of Buenos Aires, and Patricia Bullrich, former Minister of Security.
The right-wing Together for Change is the preferred option for Argentines in the polls that have been coming out in the last half of the term. Although he suffered a strong discredit for his economic management during the Macri government, the inability of Peronism to reverse the situation in the last four years has increased his chances of governing again.
The other figure that Peronism fears, and the one that can cause its debacle, is Javier Milei. This Argentine economist is positioned second in voting intentions thanks to an anti-system discourse linked to the extreme right that reflects the discontent of millions of Argentines. His support has multiplied since the 2021 parliamentary elections through a marked ultra-conservative populism that aims to end the current system and promote radical neoliberalism that almost completely eliminates the weight of the State.
With this context, Peronism arrives with a few months to go before the presidential elections. Half a year in which it will be essential for its survival as a political coalition to find someone capable of bringing together the millions of people who in the past have placed their trust in them, but in which they will have to play with the burden of having suffered a profound wear and tear in these four years of government marked by internal divisions, drought in the countryside and the deep economic crisis in Argentina.
