/ARTS WEEKLY/TELEVISION-ARGENTINA: A Candidate Is Born

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Sep 24 2002 (IPS) - Argentine television has long served as a springboard for politicians who have known how to take advantage of the spotlight and the cameras, but now the small screen is being used to turn regular citizens into political candidates.

Sebastián Meléndez, the mind behind “El candidato de la gente” (The People’s Candidate), a programme that premiered Sep 22, said the idea emerged as a result of the profound crisis in Argentina in which the population does not feel represented by the politicians in office today.

“We thought it would be ideal to create a space that would provide an opportunity for potential new leaders who have new political agendas,” Meléndez told IPS.

Hundreds of interested individuals signed up for the first round of interviews with a production team, which selected 100 contestants to compete in the second round in front of the cameras. Of that group, 16 were chosen to participate in the televised series.

TV audiences now have the opportunity to decide who best represents their interests among the 16 candidates, who will have to explain their proposals, take part in debates and compete in a set of tests designed by the programme’s producers.

At the end of the series, the TV production executives will sign up “the people’s candidate” with the electoral authorities as president of a yet-to-be-created party to run in the legislative elections next year.

The excitement surrounding the new show was evident in the queue of political hopefuls waiting to take part in the first test, which numbered 500 people an hour before the appointed time.

“I have always been interested in politics but I was never active in any party. That’s why I’m here, because this is an opportunity in an independent context,” María Sbaragli, 28, an attorney “with not much work these days”, told IPS as she waited her turn.

“I have a lot of ideas, but what differentiates me from today’s politicians is that I can contribute honesty,” said Sbaragli, before launching into her proposals for fighting unemployment, poverty and insecurity, three of Argentina’s most pressing problems.

Oscar Cánepa, 41, a systems analyst who was not as willing as Sbaragli to reveal his political platform, took on the traditional political leaders.

“Of today’s politicians, I would elect them all, because they have some fantastic ideas. But I would like to know how they are going to achieve all that they promise. I, however, know how to do it. So I asked myself, why not me?”

“El candidato de la gente” follows the lines of the kind of television programmes that have already served in Argentina as contests to be part of a pop music group, or become a top model, or shows that seek talented athletes or people willing to pose nude.

“These are cheap programmes, with low production costs — but the capacity to generate a lot of money,” says television critic Any Ventura.

A case in point is Bandana, the singing group of young women that emerged out of the show “Popstars”. The group of five seems to be unstoppable, with continued success in album sales and concerts.

“Popstars” began in early 2001 with the pre-selection, which drew thousands of young women. In the subsequent programmes, following a sort of reality-show format, the judges chose the ones who sang and danced the best, and had most charisma, whittling down the group to the five who are now in Bandana.

This year, the same type of show is under way, but to form a pop group of young men. There was also a programme aimed at teenaged boys with a talent for football, and another in search of individuals who were willing to take off their clothes, as simple as that.

Now the star-making factory of Argentine television has set its sights on politics. And there is fertile ground in this country, where two of three people polled say they do not trust any politician to govern the country, according to a survey by Hugo Haime. There is a growing clamour among the electorate that “all politicians must go!”

Omar Benítez, 42 and unemployed, is another who aspired to be selected for “The People’s Candidate”. In the past he has served as a district councillor for the ruling Justicialista (Peronist) Party.

“Now I don’t want anything to do with competing within that party because the new leaders have cast us aside, the ones who are the real representatives of the people,” he said.

Benítez, who in the 1980s was one of the leaders of a movement that resisted the bulldozing of an illegal settlement of homes in Buenos Aires, today tries to sustain his family with his unemployment subsidy of just 150 pesos a month, approximately 40 dollars.

“We need to give the unemployed at least 600 pesos (170 dollars) a month and require them to return to the classroom for training in new technologies, because computers have displaced workers. The state has to compensate people for this transformation,” said Benítez as he waited in line.

Another applicant to be the people’s candidate is Rafael Cabrera, who at age 60 has a dream he wants to fulfil. “Since I was 20 years old, I have dreamed that I win a million-dollar prize and I give it to the people who are most needy,” he said.

Cabrera has also been unemployed for several years, and said he tried to participate in politics, but the long-standing parties “didn’t give me much room,” he recalled.

The requirements for participation in the new television programme are that all candidates must be at least 25 years old, with corresponding identity documents, and have resided in Buenos Aires at least four years. These are the constitutional requirements for anyone who seeks a seat in the Chamber of Deputies representing the Argentine capital.

Ana Navarro, 52, showed up at the television studios with her daughter and a folder overflowing with papers.

“I worked 28 years in a laboratory, but they fired me in November, and now I am disposable material,” she complained, repeating what other would-be contestants have said, that her interest in playing a role in politics via the TV series came about as a consequence of her fruitless search for a stable job.

“I was never active in a political party, but I like to participate and I have many proposals I’d like to present, even if it is through a TV show,” Navarro told IPS.