This phrase by the conservative philosopher and poet Jorge Luis Borges seems to have guided Peronism’s decisions around a unity list. A list that will include Sergio Massa as presidential pre-candidate, accompanied on the ticket by Agustín “el Chivo” Rossi, in the new nomenclature of the ruling front, renamed Unión por la Patria (Union for the Homeland).
In a surprise last-minute move and under pressure from the governors of the provinces, the unions belonging to the General Confederation of Labour – the most bureaucratic but also the most economically and numerically powerful wing of the labour movement – and measurements of possible support, the pre-candidates Wado de Pedro, son of the disappeared and promoted by Kirchnerism, and Daniel Scioli, now ambassador to Brazil and a member of the “albertista” wing, declined their candidacies.
Jujuy, opposition and inflation
On 29 July 1812, General Manuel Belgrano issued a proclamation ordering the start of the “Jujuy Exodus”, a generalised military and civilian retreat ordered in Buenos Aires by the then central government of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata. The inhabitants of Jujuy abandoned their homes and destroyed everything they left behind, so that the royalist forces, which were advancing in large numbers from Upper Peru, threatening the incipient and still undeclared independence of the Spanish crown, would not be able to take any of their goods and would be left without supplies.
In that communication, Belgrano pointed out the imminent threat and alluded to the cipayism of the wealthy sectors who wanted the colonial regime to continue: “and the worst thing is that they are called upon by the unnatural people who live among you and who lose no means to ensure that our sacred rights of freedom, property and security are outraged and you return to slavery”.
Two hundred and eleven years after, this northern Argentine province is governed by Gerardo Morales, from the right-wing radical party now allied to Juntos por el Cambio, the electoral party that brought Macri to power in 2015. Morales runs a satrap regime, co-opting the various functions of the provincial state, illegitimately imprisoning the popular leader Milagro Sala, and unleashing brutal repression against indigenous peoples, teachers and movements opposed to a reform of the constitution aimed at preventing all protest and silencing all dissent.
In analogy to the picture described by Belgrano, the neo-colonial spirit intends to “free” the terrain for the invasion of the multinationals from the North, interested in the exploitation of lithium, the new “white gold” of the green reconversion of capitalism, preventing the national and regional integration projects underway for the exploitation and industrialisation of the valuable mineral.
But unlike then, the courageous indigenous communities have not abandoned the roads, despite the inclement cold, the ruthless violence deployed by the forces of the provincial government and the relative inaction of the national government, which claims it does not formally have the legal instruments for federal intervention.
Morales himself has been ratified as the running mate of the current mayor (viceroy?) of the city of Buenos Aires Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, one of the main candidates of the neoliberal alliance and, at least for now, in contention with the godfather Macri for the future business that will come out of the state administration.
The election of the governor of Jujuy as a pre-candidate for vice-president is a clear sign of the repressive orientation of a possible future government of this force. It is also a sign that the other pre-candidate, Patricia Bullrich, who is known for her virulent statements on internal security, will be beaten within the alliance. A profile that, in turn, seeks to collect the possible votes of discontent that the irrationalism of the extreme right, incarnated by Javier Milei, inflated by the monopoly media and with a weak territorial base that severely conditions his electoral strength.
However, the main opposition to the current government is the galloping increase in prices of the basic food basket, which is more than 100 percent annually, a situation that has plunged more than half of the Argentine population into poverty. It was Massa, the new candidate of the ruling party, who had been placed in the position of “super-minister” to mitigate the inflationary catastrophe and at the same time, thanks to his contacts in the United States, to try to renegotiate the terms of the monstrous and suffocating foreign debt contracted by Macri. Objectives that, for the moment, have not been achieved.
Pragmatism and right-wingism
With the behind-the-scenes designation of Massa as the presidential figurehead of Unión por la Patria, the electoral field has shifted to the right, leaving the most progressive sectors of the Frente de Todos with no other option but to support this shift or risk being defeated at the polls by the rival alliance.
As has long been the case in other Latin American countries, Argentina today is a country plagued by precariousness and the lack of regular jobs, a sort of de facto labour reform operated by big speculator and rentier capital. In this context, the state is a coveted booty that allows the winners of the political contest to house thousands of followers and militants in positions of government administration, guaranteeing them sustenance and acquired rights. On the other hand, in a mixture of pragmatism and ideology in which the former takes precedence, the conjuncture demands that the possibility of the reactionary faction of Juntos por el Cambio gaining control of the reins of state through an electoral triumph be truncated.
Federalism or provincial feudalism?
The specific weight of provincial governments is becoming decisive in Argentina’s political landscape. With a few exceptions, most provincial administrations managed to revalidate their status this year through the re-election of the governor or the victory of political appointees of the same party. This fact, which might otherwise be celebrated as an advance in federalism and the redistribution of a centralist national power concentrated in Buenos Aires towards the regions – an unresolved issue in Argentine history – reveals in a less naïve analysis the power of provincial states as the largest employers, service providers and administrators in the transfer of emergency resources to the needy population.
Furthermore, most provinces maintain dependent relationships with the main economic clans, which intimately intertwines their interests with the institutional framework. By placing their representatives in the main governmental bodies and, not infrequently, making use of blatant nepotism, the provinces retain an undisguisable feudal tinge.
The international front
The current government of Alberto Fernández has played an important role in the recomposition of regional integration projects, forming part, together with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, of the tandem that reactivated CELAC, the main sovereign counterweight to the OAS, an organ of domination commanded by the United States.
Now, at the culmination of both mandates, Brazil is taking the baton, becoming, due to its specific weight and the determined actions of Lula’s government, the locomotive of sovereignty and regional integration, and beyond that, a fierce promoter of multilateralism and the redefinition of international relations in favour of the global South.
In Argentina, the return of a neoliberal government would be a major setback that would undermine the incipient new winds of collaborator and openness to diversity that were highlighted by the majority at the last summit of South American presidents in Brasilia.
However, an electoral victory for the ‘national and popular’ front with a strengthening of Sergio Massa’s presidential candidacy in the primaries does not guarantee the opposite. With the latter located in the vicinity of the US embassy’s zone of influence, there is nothing to prevent Argentina’s commitment to integration from becoming more tenuous and it could once again support, under pressure from the bank, the Southern Command and the US government, measures of exclusion and coercion against left-wing governments.
On the other hand, the application to join the BRICS, pre-approved by the different partners, and the dependence on China to alleviate the critical financial situation and the need for foreign investment, make a frontal and “carnal” alignment with the North American power, eager to sweep the Asian power out of Latin America and the Caribbean, which it continues to consider its exclusive zone of influence, practically impossible.
The people
Battered by a dramatic situation of heroic daily survival, the Argentine people’s main preoccupation is not the ups and downs of political candidacies.
In practice, the population is far removed from any decision-making role, and views with scepticism and unease the ineffectiveness of successive governments in changing their living conditions.
In line with the feelings of the majority of the world’s people, Argentines are caught in a crucial paradox. While they defend the achievements of four decades since the end of the fatal dictatorships, and while the forge of a long political culture continues to ignite contention in this nation of visceral passions, trust in campaign slogans and political figures has fallen to insubstantial lows.
The paradox lies in the fact that real financial and media power, which today co-opts the judicial sector to persecute and veto anyone who dares to rebel, has made “anti-politics” its main slogan, in the best neoliberal style of the 1990s. The people, who are increasingly distanced from political networks, are thus urged to distance themselves even further, leaving the management of public affairs to a minority that can be easily corrupted by power itself, or directly to puppets in the pay of capital.
The call for a utopia that demands a new configuration of social organisation, favouring a real democracy, with redistribution and effective decentralisation of power towards the social base, thus becomes all the more relevant.