POLITICS-ARGENTINA: Gov’t Dealt Expected Blow at the Polls

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Oct 15 2001 (IPS) - The government of Fernando de la Rúa was dealt a harsh blow in Sunday’s legislative elections in Argentina, in which the opposition ‘Justicialista’ (Peronist) Party triumphed, mainly due to generalised ill-feeling over a three-year recession.

The sorely divided ruling coalition lost its relative majority in the 257-seat lower house of Congress, which was partially renewed. The Alliance’s share of seats shrunk from 104 to 90, while the Justicialista Party’s total rose from 98 to 110.

In the 72-seat Senate, which was entirely up for grabs Sunday, the Justicialista Party was already the strongest force, and its total number of senators grew from 39 to 41. The ruling Alliance’s share, meanwhile, declined from 25 to 22.

Despite the fact that voting is compulsory in Argentina, 23 percent of voters failed to turn out, while over 15 percent of those who did show up cast blank or spoiled ballots to express their contempt for or disillusionment with politics today.

The unusually large number of Argentinians who cast a protest vote, some of whom pencilled in the names of independence heroes or cartoon characters, was taken as a signal of alarm.

Blank or spoiled ballots comprised the largest single bloc of votes in the capital and in the nearby province of Santa Fe, as well as in the southern province of Tierra del Fuego, and came second in other districts.

The most impressive victory went to Justicialista candidate Eduardo Duhalde, a former governor of Buenos Aires province – the most populous of the country’s 24 electoral districts – who won a seat in the Senate with 37.5 percent of the vote.

Former president Raúl Alfonsín, one of the Alliance’s candidates in the province of Buenos Aires, also earned a seat, but with just 14.9 percent of the vote.

The Justicialista Party scored triumphs in 16 voting districts.

The Alliance, on the other hand, was victorious in just seven districts. During the campaign, two of its winning candidates, in the northern province of Chaco and the city of Buenos Aires, called for changes in the government’s economic policy in order to bolster production.

The divided left grew in the capital, where socialist candidate Luis Zamora won broad support. The candidates to the lower house of Congress fielded by the leftist parties took a combined 25 percent of the vote.

Observers highlighted the backing for Zamora, who in the 1990s became the first Trotskyist to enter parliament. Zamora later abandoned politics and renounced the special pension he had earned as a former member of the Chamber of Deputies.

After becoming a street vendor of books, Zamora was tempted to take part in Sunday’s elections. Although he mounted virtually no campaign to speak of, he garnered 10 percent of the vote in the capital.

De la Rúa acknowledged Sunday night that “many things must change.

“I’m not going to cover up my ears, because I am aware of people’s suffering,” said the president.

However, he merely suggested a possible cabinet shuffle – “to make it more homogeneous” – and made no mention of modifications of the government’s austerity plan, aimed at balancing the budget, or of the fixed exchange rate.

Duhalde, meanwhile, warned the president that it was “suicidal” to maintain the government’s current economic policies, and said that if the administration did not shift course, the recession would give rise to “anarchy.”

Similar warnings were issued by Rodolfo Terragno, whose parliamentary list triumphed in the capital and won two seats for the Alliance in the Senate.

Government spokespersons said changes in the cabinet and new economic measures would be announced within the next few days.

However, analysts said none of the measures under consideration would entail a shift in direction. The most likely possibility, they added, was that the government would announce a voluntary swap of foreign debt bonds to ease the burden of payments.

De la Rúa and Economy Minister Domingo Cavallo, brought to bay by the heavy debt servicing and by the unprecedented interest rates on Argentine government bonds, will not give up on their “zero-deficit” policy, according to observers.

Terragno, who campaigned against the zero-deficit policy, which has brought cuts in state wages and pensions, took 21 percent of the vote in the capital. Nevertheless, his victory was overshadowed by the proportion of blank and spoiled ballots, which totalled 28 percent in his district.

Analysts noted Monday that the “voto bronca”, or vote of anger, was seven times larger Sunday than in the average of the rest of the parliamentary elections held since 1983, when democracy was restored after seven years of military dictatorship.

According to a post-election survey carried out by the Centre of Studies on Public Opinion, 63 percent of those who cast blank or spoiled ballots were expressing their rejection of the political establishment, while the rest simply found no candidate that they felt represented them.

The sheer number of those casting a protest vote eclipsed several historic aspects of the elections.

Sunday was the first time that senators were directly elected by popular vote, and that the upper house of Congress was completely renovated. Up to now, the members of the Senate were chosen by the provincial legislatures.

The new system cleared the way for popular political leaders enjoying broader support among the public to enter the upper house of Congress. Traditionally, senators have been drab politicians who won their seats due to party interests rather than popularity.

Another element to be underscored is that for the first time, the law reserving quotas for female candidates was applied to elections for the Senate. Women, who held just two of a total of 72 seats in the upper house, will hold more than 20 percent in the new legislature, despite the secondary role they played in the election campaign.

Women’s groups, who celebrated the quota law, complained before the elections that female candidates virtually failed to appear in the parties’ publicity spots. That was confirmed Sunday.

For example, Mabel Muller won a seat in the province of Buenos Aires on the list headed by Duhalde. But at the celebrations, the front seats were occupied by Duhalde and his wife, and by the province’s governor, Carlos Ruckauf.

In the photo, the three, with their hands raised, completely blocked out Muller, who was sitting behind them.