ELECTIONS-ARGENTINA: In a Close Race, Each and Every Vote Counts

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Apr 25 2003 (IPS) - Some 25 million Argentines will vote in Sunday’s presidential election with an unexpected sense of enthusiasm that emerged at the last minute, because the absence of any clear favourites has driven home the importance of each and every vote.

Opinion polls indicate that there will be a runoff on May 18 between the two most popular candidates. But it is not at all clear which of the five leading contenders will make it to the second round.

The final stretch of the campaign, which ended Thursday, focused more on mudslinging than on highlighting the supposed qualities of each candidate, or their platforms.

”In Argentina, the politicians make us feel like we are at their mercy, that we have to accept them as they are because there isn’t anyone else, and that generates a feeling of impotence and a lack of interest in voting,” Susana Colombo, one of the voters described by the pollsters as ”fluctuating,” told IPS.

”But now that the race is so tight, you feel more powerful, at least for a few hours,” she added.

The so-called ”unstable” or ”fluctuating” voters are not the same as the ”undecideds”, say analysts, who point out that instead of having no idea who they will vote for, their voting preferences have shifted continually.

The category comprises 40 percent of the electorate, according to the Romer y Asociados polling firm, and nearly 60 percent according to the Catterberg pollsters.

Colombo explained that a while back she had decided to cast her ballot for centre-left parliamentary Deputy Elisa Carrió, whose possibilities of making it to the runoff have fallen, as indicated by the polls.

But now she is considering voting for Néstor Kirchner, one of the three governing Justicialista (Peronist) Party candidates, in a bid to keep former Peronist president Carlos Menem (1989-1999) from winning.

Similar shifts of opinion have become common, as indicated by the unusual fluctuations in voting intentions reflected by the polls. The perception is that only a minority of voters still stand by their decision about who they said they would vote for a month ago.

Pollster Jorge Giacobbe told IPS that a majority of voters have been changing their minds daily or even several times a day, based on the information they receive, and without being limited by a sense of ideological or party loyalty. In fact, he said, ”they feel free to make last-minute decisions,” and even to change their minds after they actually reach the voting station.

That is not the only new phenomenon in these elections, the first in which the Justicialista Party has fielded three different candidates, and in which its historical rival, the Radical Civic Union (UCR), would appear to be on the verge of disappearing altogether, with the poll ratings of its candidate, Leopoldo Moreau, standing at just two percent.

This is also the first presidential election in which it looks certain that a second round will be held, because no candidate is expected to take the minimum 45 percent of the vote – or 40 percent and a 10-point lead over the nearest rival – that since 1994 has been necessary to avoid a runoff.

As far as forecasts, the pundits only venture to say that the three candidates with the strongest chances of facing off on May 18 are Peronists Menem and Kirchner, and a centre-right former member of the UCR, economist Ricardo López Murphy.

The three are neck and neck, with differences in ratings that are smaller than the margins of error in the surveys.

The polls show that the third Justicialista candidate, Adolfo Rodríguez Saá, is just behind Menem, Kirchner and López Murphy, while Carrió is in fifth place.

But in the last survey conducted by Giacobbe, on Apr. 18, the difference between the first and the last of the five leading candidates was a mere 8.5 percent.

”Now we see that López Murphy, for example, who was third in large cities like Mar del Plata or Avellaneda (in the province of Buenos Aires), has climbed to first place in eight days,” said the pollster, who was one of the first to point to the independent economist’s swift rise in popularity.

Several days ago, Giaccobe pointed out that López Murphy stood a good chance of making it to the second round with Menem. But Thursday, on the eve of the pre-election blackout on campaign publicity and the publishing of poll results in the local media, he made another prediction.

”Many voters, seeing how López Murphy has gained popularity in the past few days, switched from Carrió to Kirchner, so it would not be surprising if instead of Menem, Kirchner makes it to the second round, to compete against López Murphy,” he said.

Last-minute changes of heart have also been reported among right-wing voters in the upper-middle or upper socioeconomic strata, who viewed Menem as the rightist candidate with the strongest possibilities, but would prefer to vote for López Murphy, who has a cleaner image, if he really stands a chance of winning.

Of the total 19 presidential candidates, 14 have low ratings. In Sunday’s election, voters in this crisis-stricken Southern Cone country of 37 million, where voting is mandatory, are choosing neither governors nor legislators, except in the northwestern province of La Rioja, where local executive and legislative authorities will be elected.

Some candidates, including Rodríguez Saá, have already begun to warn about fraud, and analysts say there will be challenges to the election results if they are very close.

In a situation in which the differences consist of just a few votes, and candidates challenge the results, there would not be time to stick to the agreed timeframe, according to which the two participants in the runoff would be announced by Congress on May 7, and the next president would take office on May 25.

If the vote-counting or challenges to the results make it impossible to stick to schedule, Congress would have to name an interim president, chosen from among the provincial governors and national legislators, to temporarily take over from current caretaker President Eduardo Duhalde.