Argentine Elections: Are We On The Verge Of An “Economic Miracle” Or Will We Succomb To Decrepitude?

A few days separate the Argentine electorate from the transcendental PASO primaries. The electorate appears to be living in a paradoxical moment of euphoria, with a boom in financial assets and consumption, while the country teeters on the verge of default and potential hyperinflation. This fractured reality is both cause and consequence of the extreme levels of uncertainty generated by the complicated macroeconomic situation of the nation and the breakdown of the hegemony of the two leading coalitions, which have fractured internally while giving rise to a third competitive political alternative incarnated by ultra-liberal economist Javier Milei. It isn’t clear whether we are living in an Argentina that is on the cusp of a revolution that will see the nation finally thrive or if the weight of its problems are such that even the grace of fortune, filling the land with precious natural resources, will be insufficient to create the “Argentine miracle” that has remained elusive for decades. In that context, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta and Patricia Bullrich are fighting tooth and nail for a spot in the presidential ticket in what is truly a competitive primary, the likes of which the country hasn’t seen in the past few decades, if ever, but which could erode Juntos por el Cambio’s competitive advantage, while Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has allowed Sergio Massa to take the lead in order to avoid a disastrous third place in the general election that will leave Unión por la Patria out of the run-off. Milei, who up until recently was seen as the frontrunner in the individual vote for the primaries, has seen his star begin to fade as accusations of financial foul play pile up against him.

As the first veil of uncertainty was lifted with the formal presentation of the electoral tickets just over a month ago, the situation has become even more complex. Counter-intuitively, the economy minister’s emergence to lead the ticket by displacing colleague Eduardo ‘Wado’ de Pedro (Argentina’s interior minister) gave a massive boost to Unión por la Patria’s voting intentions, despite Massa’s massive levels of public rejection. From a potentially fatal third place, the pan-Peronist coalition inched closer to nearly 30 percent of the vote, according to a poll aggregator put together by political scientist Federico Tiberti from Princeton University a few weeks ago. This sudden and unexpected surge is mirrored by the expected voting intention of their main political rivals, Juntos por el Cambio, which could get close to the 35-percent mark through the sum of Rodríguez Larreta and Bullrich’s votes. Milei’s incredible rise to around 25 percent, potentially displacing the Peronists and threatening their capacity to make it to the run-off vote, stalled somewhere between April and May and is now showing a steep decline, potentially falling below the 20-percent line. The libertarian vote, seen as an anti-system reaction by a portion of the electorate that is sick and tired with the political “caste,” along with the blank and undecided vote, and whatever Córdoba Province Governor Juan Schiaretti could scrape, seems to be finding its way back to the leading coalitions as the election draws closer.