By Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES, Apr 2 2003 (IPS)

The only certainty arising from the opinion polls about the Apr 27 presidential elections in Argentina is that, for the first time, a run-off vote will be necessary to elect the president. Voters, apparently disgusted with politics, are ambivalent, giving no candidate more than 20 percent support.

"Within the great ambiguity of the electoral panorama, there is relative certainty that the next president will not be elected in the first round. In other words, it is not so important who wins then, but rather who makes it to the run-off election," says pollster Graciela Romer.

"There is a situation of near parity amongst the four leading candidates, which makes it difficult to predict the outcome of the first round of voting," she says.

Her colleague Artemio López, of the polling firm Equis, agrees that the only sure thing suggested by the opinion surveys in the days leading up to the elections is that a second-round vote will be necessary to chose President Eduardo Duhalde’s successor.

"There is no way around it because no candidate is going to obtain more than 45 percent of the vote in the first round, nor win by more than 10 percentage points," López said in a conversation with IPS.

The Argentine constitution establishes that to win the presidency in the first round of elections the leading candidate must obtain more than 45 percent of valid votes, regardless of whether the second-place candidate is far behind, or else win more than 40 percent of the vote and maintain a 10-point advantage over the closest rival.

If neither of these two possibilities occurs, the two most- voted candidates must compete in a presidential run-off election.

Under these rules, the parity existing between the candidates in a context of general apathy among voters makes a second-round election inevitable, which is slated for May 18, just a week before the new president is to be sworn in.

It would be the first time that this electoral measure would be utilised since it was incorporated into the Argentine political system in 1983.

The Apr 27 election date was set by Duhalde, who was designated president Dec 31, 2001, by the Argentine Congress to serve out the four-year term of Fernando de la Rúa, who had resigned 10 days earlier amidst economic and social chaos.

Duhalde confronted – with varying degrees of success – the challenges of the crisis, and decided to call new presidential elections within six months.

But the severe crisis of political legitimacy arising from Argentina’s economic and social collapse has not been resolved. This is evident in the fact that no presidential candidate has been able so far to attract the support of more than 20 percent of the voters surveyed.

Also contributing to the poor image of politics is the deep crisis afflicting the ruling Justicialista (Peronist) Party, which has proved unable to settle internal disputes in order to hold internal elections – and thus has three candidates in the running for president.

Waving the flags and wielding the symbols of Peronism are Néstor Kirchner, governor of the southern province of Santa Cruz, Adolfo Rodríguez Saá, former governor of the central-western province of San Luis and president for seven days after De la Rúa resigned, and former president Carlos Menem (1989-1999).

Kirchner, with the explicit support of the Justicialista sector headed by Duhalde, leads in the polls four weeks before the elections. According to the surveys conducted by the Ibope polling firm, he has 18.9 percent of support among the electorate, and 19 percent according to the Zuleta Puceiro firm.

Rodríguez Saá and Menem are rivals for second place, just short of Kirchner, with a margin of difference so small that experts do not dare predict which of the two will end up in the presidential run-off vote.

Nevertheless, political analysts are willing to assert that if Menem reaches the second-round elections his competitor is sure to triumph, given the strong rejection of the former president among poll respondents.

In an Ibope poll that asked which candidate they would "never" vote for, 54 percent of those surveyed named Menem. Other polling firms, like Romer, have asked similar questions and reported comparable results.

Romer reckons that "Menem would lose against any candidate in the run-off. In these elections the voters have serious doubts about who to vote for because of the crisis of political legitimacy, but they have no doubts about who they would not vote for, and that negative vote will be focused on Menem."

Coming in fourth place in the polls is lawmaker Elisa Carrió, of the centre-left party Argentines for a Republic of Equals. In fifth is conservative Ricardo López Murphy, former minister of economy.

Both candidates forged their political careers in the long- standing centre-left Radical Civic Union (UCR), but left the party.

And polling at sixth place, with less than 10 percent support, is senator Leopoldo Moreau, the sole candidate of the UCR, a party that has governed Argentina four times in the past century and which put De la Rúa in the presidency.

The even standings in the polls, and the scant hope that Argentina’s economic and social crisis will be overcome in the short term contribute to the lack of enthusiasm amongst Argentine voters for the Apr 27 elections.

"I don’t know who to vote for. I know that nobody is going to be able to do much," Martha Gutiérrez, a 72-year-old retiree, told IPS.

"After De la Rúa resigned it seemed that there was going to be a turnover of politicians, but they all come from the same ranks and none seems able to improve things in this country," she added.

Gutiérrez’s discouragement runs deep, and is manifest in the fact that she is considering two candidates whose proposals run directly counter to each other.

"I’d like to vote for (centre-leftist) Carrió, but I don’t think she’ll be able to achieve anything. Perhaps it would be better to chose (centre-rightist) López Murphy, who at least seems to be honest and has a strong team of advisers," she said.

Another factor contributing to electoral apathy emerged Mar 20, when the U.S. and British invasion of Iraq began.

The second Gulf War has captivated the attention of the Argentine people. The country’s economic crisis is second in terms of interest, leaving the presidential elections in third – and practically without any debates between the contenders.

A study by the D’Alessio consulting firm indicates that barely 10 percent of those surveyed say they are interested in the elections, while the status of the economy draws 24 percent and the Iraq war no less than 66 percent.

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