Can They Really Eliminate The Primaries In Argentina Ahead Of The 2023 Election?

It should be relatively obvious to anybody that has bothered to pay attention that the debate regarding the suspension of Argentina’s controversial PASO primaries is dictated by the personal interests of the involved parties. This is particularly evident in the case of the ruling coalition, Frente de Todos, where the major faction that responds to Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is openly in conflict with her hand-picked president, Alberto Fernández. Even in the opposition coalition, Juntos por el Cambio, – where several important leaders starting with the main contender in 2023, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, have decried the move as an attempt to manipulate the electoral system – intentions are purely pragmatic. Only a few years ago, when Mauricio Macri was president, they tried to eliminate the system themselves only to find they were incapable of doing so, as a video circulated by La Cámpora political organization reminded us. Don’t blame the player, blame the game.

Argentina’s electoral system has included “obligatory” primaries since 2009, a move that was pushed by Fernández de Kirchner’s administration. As usual, the new model was seen by the opposition as an attempt by Néstor Kirchner and his wife to consolidate their power, which in turn strengthened a two-party system that has morphed into “bi-coalitionism” that has dominated Argentine politics, at least over the last two decades. An important element of the new electoral law that was criticized back then by several future allies of the Kirchnerites had to do with excluding parties with less than 1.5 percent of the vote in the PASO primaries from competing in the real elections, meaning it reduced the fragmentation of big parties, which was supposed to benefit the Frente para la Victoria (the coalition led by the Kirchners).